Former President Donald Trump had no significant problems defeating Nikki Haley in the New Hampshire primaries.
Trump, positioned as the great favorite according to most polls, is currently winning by ten percentage points over Haley with 70% of the votes counted.
Just before reaching 20% of the vote counted, the leading national media, from Fox News to the Associated Press, projected the former president as the winner.
“I’m very honored by the result,” Trump told Fox News Digital quickly after being declared the winner.
The former president also mentioned that his last standing opponent should withdraw from the race: “She should because, otherwise, we have to keep wasting money instead of spending on Biden. If she doesn’t drop out, we have to waste money instead of spending it on Biden, which is our focus.”
At the time of publishing this article, without complete results available and with constant updates, The New York Times projects that the final difference between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley will be approximately eleven percentage points. This is a difference that may vary as more results are released.
Haley stays in the race
With Trump’s victory complete, Haley quickly responded to the results to ensure that her campaign will continue even in a seemingly uphill electoral race.
“New Hampshire is first in the nation, it is not last in the nation [...] There are dozens of states left to go. And the next one is my sweet state of South Carolina,” Haley told her supporters in an almost victorious tone.
#NHPrimarias | Nikki Haley dice que no va a abandonar la carrera tras la derrota en New Hampshire.
"Quedan docenas de estados por delante. Y el siguiente es mi dulce estado de Carolina del Sur". pic.twitter.com/TfmdeIxHHS
— VOZ (@VozMediaUSA) January 24, 2024
Despite being defeated, the former governor of South Carolina did not obtain dismal results, exceeding the expectations of multiple polls that put her below Trump by a margin of more than fifteen percentage points.
For now, with many votes yet to be counted, the difference is somewhat lower: between 10 and 12 percent.
Apparently, not being swept is the signal Haley was waiting for to continue in the race until next month’s elections in her home state, South Carolina.
How did Haley close the gap on Trump?
Unlike Iowa, where the system is open only to Republican voters, in New Hampshire, Democrats and independents can vote in Republican primaries, and, according to exit polls, these voters were differential in increasing Haley’s numbers.
In fact, according to a CNN exit poll, 70% of Haley voters said they were not registered Republicans. Only 27% of respondents said they were registered GOP voters.
🚨 #BREAKING | Only 27% of those who voted for Nikki Haley were registered Republicans. https://t.co/BEpTjE3SK3
— VOZ (@Voz_US) January 24, 2024
Some Haley voters even said on national television that they would vote for President Joe Biden in the general election even if the former U.N. ambassador is the Republican nominee.
🚨SMOKING GUN: CNN has a New Hampshire voter who is voting for Nikki Haley in the GOP primary and will switch his vote to Joe Biden in the general election.
This is an OUTRAGE. This must be fixed immediately. pic.twitter.com/jcRb3gf4Sh
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) January 24, 2024
Interviews and surveys of Haley voters show that Democrats and independents clearly played a leading role in preventing the former governor from being surpassed by a much larger margin.
Trump has improved his numbers compared to 2016
In a historical comparison, the former president obtained better numbers in New Hampshire than in 2016, when he had won the election with 35.3% of the votes in an election where four other candidates reached double digits.
Trump, in that election, received a total of just over 100,000 votes. That figure has already been widely surpassed in this election, with more than 120,000 votes cast for Trump with 70% of the votes counted.
This is a developing news story.
