US presidential election 2024: What is at stake for Republicans and Democrats in the New Hampshire primaries? Franceinfo

On the conservative side, the vote can confirm Donald Trump's favorite status. For Joe Biden's party, this vote has the peculiarity that it takes place without mentioning the president's name on the ballot papers.

Published on January 23, 2024 06:04

Reading time: 4 minutes

Signs encouraging people to vote for Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Nikki Haley during the New Hampshire primary election on January 19, 2024 in Manchester, USA. (CHIP SOMODEVILLA / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP)

This is the traditional second phase of the primaries for the American presidential election. Voters in New Hampshire on the East Coast of the United States are called to vote on the Democratic and Republican candidates in the race for the White House on Tuesday, January 23rd.

A week after his first-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, Donald Trump is trying to confirm his lead in the race for the conservative nomination. On the Democratic side, the first election of 2024 will be held without Joe Biden. Franceinfo summarizes for you the themes of this new election day.

For Donald Trump the chance to consolidate his favorite status

Observers will be keeping their eyes on the results of the Republican primary in New Hampshire on Tuesday evening. A week after winning more than 50% of the vote in Iowa and three other candidates dropping out, Donald Trump appears increasingly confident of winning the party's nomination in July. Despite multiple indictments, the ex-president is more than 50 points ahead of his opponents, according to poll aggregator website FiveThirtyEight.

Donald Trump during a meeting in Rochester, New Hampshire (USA), January 21, 2024. (ALEX WONG / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP)

If he “wins by a big margin.” [dans le New Hampshire]“The race, as the polls suggest, is already over,” argued The New York Times on Monday. The first two states in the primaries provide only a small portion of the 2,429 delegate nominees for the party's nominee during the Republican National Convention in July. But two wins in a row would further strengthen Donald Trump's favorite status. His remaining opponents would then have little chance of shaking his lead in the next elections.

A chance for Nikki Haley to appear as a credible opponent

Donald Trump's stunning victory in the Iowa caucuses sparked a massacre in the ranks of candidates for the Republican nomination. Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy both quit after their defeat. But it is above all the departure of Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida and number 2 in the polls for months, that is changing the situation. With this withdrawal, Nikki Haley is now Donald Trump's main rival. Only one other candidate, little-known Texas pastor Ryan Binkley, is still running against her.

Nikki Haley during a meeting for the Republican Party primaries on January 21, 2024 in Exeter, New Hampshire, USA. (JOSEPH PREZIOSO / AFP)

The former governor of South Carolina and former American ambassador to the UN, who was well ahead of Donald Trump in voting intentions, also only came third in the Iowa primaries. But a victory in New Hampshire could give the country new momentum, estimates Portal. Such success would allow him to tackle the primaries in “his” state of South Carolina “as a viable alternative to Trump,” but also to gain new support to finance his election campaign, the American Press Agency analyzes.

Nevertheless, the task promises to be difficult, especially since Ron DeSantis has called for people to vote for Donald Trump. The candidate, who is trying to cultivate a more moderate image than her rivals, still has a chance of winning in this state where independents make up almost 40% of the electorate, says Karen Tumulty, political columnist for The Washington daily Post Office.

For the Democrats it was a purely symbolic vote

Traditionally, New Hampshire is the second state to vote for president in the Republican and Democratic primaries. But this year, Joe Biden's party is facing an unprecedented situation: no delegates will be allocated after this election.

To win the Democratic nomination, a candidate must receive the votes of a majority of delegates at the party's national convention, which will be held in August in Chicago, Illinois. Joe Biden wants to give more weight to states that better reflect the diversity of America's demographics and has decided that South Carolina will open the party's primaries on February 3rd. This state's Black electorate played a significant role in his victory in the 2020 primary election.

However, the New Hampshire Democrat's office defied the president's order and postponed the vote until Tuesday, January 23rd. The sanction was not long in coming: the party's National Committee (DNC) announced that no votes would be awarded at the end of these primaries, as the Associated Press agency reported. The vote is clearly “unimportant,” assures the DNC.

Joe Biden at the White House in Washington (USA), January 19, 2024. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP)

Joe Biden has also decided to avoid these primaries. The outgoing president, who is all but certain to be nominated as a candidate to succeed him, will therefore not appear on the ballot. Some of his supporters urged voters to add his name by hand in hopes of seeing him win in New Hampshire despite everything, the CNN network notes on its website. The goal? Prove that the current tenant of the White House doesn't even have to be an official candidate to be elected, a few months before the presidential election. This success could strengthen the momentum of his campaign, while the latest polls from FiveThirtyEight show Donald Trump winning in a face-off with Joe Biden on November 5th.