Edited by Deepali Verma
Donald Trump marched on with commanding lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination by winning the New Hampshire primary on January 23. However, he failed to knock rival Nikki Haley out of the White House contest.
Trump had 55 per cent of the votes counted while Haley held 43.5 per cent. As the votes are yet to be counted, the exact margin of his victory will only be known later..
Trump’s New Hampshire comes right after his landslide victory last week in Iowa, where the former president bagged over 50 per cent of the vote. He is the very first non-incumbent standing in the modern era to have managed to win both Republican presidential contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.
These victories in the initial stages gives Trump potentially unstoppable momentum as the Republican nominating campaign advances South, bringing him face to face for a rematch in the 2024 general election with Democratic incumbent Joe Biden.
“We had one hell of a night tonight,” Trump voiced to his supporters at a post-election party in Nashua, New Hampshire. Lashing out at Haley for her stay in the race, he said that she would never win the Republican party’s nomination for the White House.
“Just a little note to Nikki: she’s not going to win,” Trump added.
Haley insisted that the race was “not over” and the next major contest is in South Carolina, where she has the history of serving two terms as governor — though she still trails the former president by double digits in recent polls there.
“New Hampshire is first in the nation but it is not last in the nation,” Haley told supporters. “This race is far from over as there are dozens of states still left to go. The next one in the line is my sweet state of South Carolina.”
The New Hampshire primary was a crucial test for Haley, who’s finish was a disappointing third place behind Florida governor Ron DeSantis in Iowa. DeSantis withdrew his campaign and was seen endorsing Trump at the weekend, saying it was rather explicit that a “majority of Republican primary voters” wanted to give Trump another chance.
Haley’s vow to continue fighting brings the focus on her campaign finances and whether the donors will provide the funds for a protracted primary process that could stretch for months.
Once the South Carolina Republican primary is done on February 24, the race will move to Super Tuesday on March 5, where approximately a dozen states will hold elections and award delegates.
Trump has managed to secure endorsements from all the major Republican candidates who have withdrawn from the race, such as the high-profile backing of Tim Scott, who is a senator from Haley’s home state of South Carolina. Republicans, who are bigshots, have begun to line up behind him in recent days, such as senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.
Biden’s statement on January 23, said that it is now evident that “Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee”.
“My message to the country is that the stakes could not be higher,” Biden added, stating that American “democracy”, “personal freedoms”, and the US economy were “all at stake”.
Biden was victorious in an unofficial Democratic primary in New Hampshire, as per the Associated Press projections on the night of January 23, thanks to a write-in campaign hastily organised by his supporters after the Democratic National Committee moved to change the party’s primary calendar and the president did not submit his name for the New Hampshire ballot.
