New Hampshire voters voted overwhelmingly Tuesday night to make former President Donald Trump the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election, leaving former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley far behind.
After winning the Iowa caucuses, Trump is on track to collect the 1,215 delegate votes needed to be officially declared the nominee at the party's convention in Milwaukee in July.
Never before has a presidential candidate won the first two contests on the primary nomination calendar — as Trump has now done — and failed to emerge as the party's general election nominee.
Trump mathematically cannot secure the delegate majority he needs to become the presumptive nominee before Super Tuesday on March 5th.
Even President Joe Biden admitted in a statement that Trump is the likely nominee for the Republican Party. A recent Five Thirty Eight poll showed Trump with a 4 percent lead over the aging liberal in a national showdown election.
Although Haley vowed to stay in the race, Trump's campaign has raised far more money and is outperforming the former governor in statewide polls
Donald Trump signaled Tuesday evening after his victory in New Hampshire that he would turn his attention to the general election with President Joe Biden
Despite the crushing defeat, Haley remained defiant and declared that she would remain in the race. Her campaign's focus on Feb. 24 will be her home state of South Carolina.
The reality is that after two losses, it will be difficult for Haley to keep up with Trump's fundraising prowess. At the time of writing, Trump's campaign has raised $60 million, while Haley has only raised $18.7 million.
Additionally, Trump is outperforming Haley in almost every other state and territory that can still vote for the candidate. A total of 125 Republican members of the House of Representatives have endorsed Trump, while only one has endorsed Haley.
In the U.S. Senate, 26 Republicans have endorsed Trump, none have endorsed Haley, although 13 have yet to endorse anyone.
Of the states that have not yet voted for the candidate, 11 governors have endorsed Trump and two have endorsed Haley, one of which was New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.
The next delegates will be awarded in Nevada, but thanks to a bizarre system, Trump has already won the state
The next state to pledge delegates is Nevada, but thanks to an oddity in the nomination process, Trump has already won all 30 of the state's delegates because, as he put it, Haley “decided not to play in Nevada” because of his poll numbers turned out so well.
So her name isn't on the caucus ballot, but oddly enough, Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has already dropped out of the race, will appear as a candidate.
On the same day as this caucus, the U.S. Virgin Islands will also hold a primary election for the territory's four delegates.
Trump referred to the situation in Nevada in his gleeful victory speech in the Granite State on Tuesday evening. “I heard Nikki say, 'It's going to South Carolina,' and I love South Carolina, but there's one thing she forgot: Next week it's going to Nevada.” percent gained.”
A Fox News poll found that 32 percent of Republican voters in New Hampshire said they would not vote for Trump in a national race.
Only about half of Republican voters in New Hampshire identify with Trump's “Make America Great Again” movement. And about half disagree with Trump's big lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
According to a CBS poll, Trump won just 23 voters who identify as moderate Republicans and 39 percent of college graduates.
Haley's final deployment will likely be in her home state of South Carolina if she can hold out that long
Former South Carolinian Nikki Haley did better than some polls predicted in the 20-point loss in New Hampshire, but she faces a nearly impossible path to the nomination
Haley is a South Carolina native who served as the state's governor between 2011 and 2017. However, Trump has secured the support of every major conservative figure in the state, making it difficult to imagine a Haley victory in the February 24 election.
“New Hampshire is first in the country, it's not last in the country.” “This race is far from over,” Haley told cheering fans in Concord.
Haley's team quickly determined that about five in 10 primary voters did not support Trump.
Her aides insist she will stay in the race to serve as a vehicle for anti-Trump forces that still hope he might drop out of the race because of legal problems or perhaps a health emergency.
And at least for now, the 52-year-old former governor of South Carolina still has math and donors on her side.
Haley is now set to embark on a fundraising tour that includes stops in New York, Florida, California and Texas.
Her campaign is also launching a new $4 million advertising campaign in South Carolina, starting Wednesday.
But Trump made it clear that he would do everything he could to bury Haley. “She didn’t win – she lost,” he said Tuesday night, criticizing Haley’s concession speech. He later posted a message to Haley on Truth Social: “NIKKI came last, not second!”
Trump was flanked by Haley's hometown Senator Tim Scott and her opponent in many Republican presidential debates, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom have supported him.
He announced tougher action. “I won’t get angry,” Trump said, “I’ll get retaliated.”
After South Carolina, the contests are building up before they end June 4, six weeks before the candidate is crowned at the Republican National Convention
Three days after South Carolina, the Republican primaries will take place in Michigan. Then the election will take place in Washington DC on March 3rd, and the North Dakota conservatives will meet a day later.
After that, it's the monster that is Super Tuesday on March 5, when voters go to the polls and caucuses in Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina and Oklahoma , Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia.
A mini-Super Tuesday will take place on March 12 when Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state hold primaries, while Hawaii has primary election day.
The Northern Mariana and Guam territories will hold caucuses on March 15 and 16, respectively.
Primary elections will take place on March 19 in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio.
The Louisiana primary election will take place on March 23rd.
Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Rhode Island and Wisconsin will all hold primaries on April 2nd. Wyoming will hold its caucus on April 21. Puerto Rico and Pennsylvania will hold primaries on April 21 and 23, respectively.
The calendar then begins to unwind, with Indiana holding its primaries on May 7 and Maryland, Nebraska and West Virginia holding their primaries a week later. Primary elections will take place in Kentucky and Oregon on May 21st.
The final battles will take place on June 4th in Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota.
Biden was also a winner in New Hampshire on Tuesday
President Joe Biden kicked off the general election Tuesday evening, shortly after former President Donald Trump won two of two votes in the early nomination states.
Joe Biden did not put his name on the ballot for the New Hampshire primary. The results are not binding for congress participants. He still won, thanks to an aggressive write-in campaign.
Biden urged the Democratic National Committee to allow South Carolina, the state that put him on the path to the White House with a victory in 2020, to hold the party's first official primary. It's February 3rd.
Like Trump, Biden could read some good news in the results: About eight in 10 Democrats approve of his handling of the economy, coupled with a warning: About half say that at 81, he is too old to run, and about the Half disagrees about his handling of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, according to AP VoteCast.
Both men are clearly in dominant positions … for a rematch that many voters say they don't want.