Actually I cut him off: “Who the hell was the imposter that went up on the stage before and, like, claimed a victory? She did very poorly, actually.”
You know Don Rickles would be awed by Donald's ability to insult in an almost comedic way. Excuse me, I didn't mean the "almost" part.
Donald Trump Wins New Hampshire Republican Primary
Nikki Haley entered Tuesday’s contest hoping the state’s independent voters would propel her to an upset
Donald Trump won the Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire, dashing Nikki Haley’s hopes for an upset victory and reinforcing his record-breaking win in Iowa. Photo: Matt Rourke/Associated Press
By Alex Leary,, John McCormick and Eliza Collins, WSJ
Updated Jan. 23, 2024 10:12 pm ET
CONCORD, N.H.—Donald Trump won New Hampshire’s GOP presidential primary, propelling him closer to the nomination and a rematch with President Biden, even though Nikki Haley pledged to stay in the race.
The Associated Press called the race for Trump right after polls closed at 8 p.m. With 45% of the estimated vote counted, Trump led Haley 53% to 45%.
Trump lashed out at Haley during a speech from Nashua, N.H., for her positive characterization of her performance. “Who the hell was the imposter that went up on the stage before and, like, claimed a victory? She did very poorly, actually.”
“We had one hell of a night tonight,” Trump declared.
A defiant Haley, Trump’s only remaining top-tier opponent, vowed Tuesday night to press ahead. She entered the New Hampshire contest hoping the state’s independent voters would lead her to an upset, an outcome that represented her best chance for prolonging the nomination fight.
Haley, a former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, has been the last hope for anti-Trump Republicans wanting the party to move on from its dominant figure, who faces a litany of criminal charges and helped lead the GOP to losses in the last three national elections.
“This race is far from over,” Haley said shortly after New Hampshire contest was called. “There are dozens of states left to go.”
Haley also sharpened her criticism of Trump as she spoke to supporters at a hotel in Concord. “The worst kept secret in politics is how badly the Democrats want to run against Donald Trump,” she said.
The victory reinforced Trump’s record-breaking win in Iowa eight days earlier, though he is still weeks away from racking up the delegates required to formally secure the nomination. It places significant pressure on Haley to drop out of the race before the contest moves to South Carolina, where Trump is ahead by 37 percentage points in a polling average.
Only once in the past 50 years has an eventual Republican nominee won both leadoff states: President Gerald R. Ford in 1976.
New Hampshire delivered Trump his first primary victory in 2016, putting him on a trajectory to win the White House and reshape the GOP in his populist mold, one that puts national interests above longstanding global commitments.
Democrats in New Hampshire on Tuesday held an unsanctioned primary after Biden pushed his party to move its first nominating contest to South Carolina, the state that revived his struggling 2020 primary bid. Biden’s name wasn’t on the ballot, though supporters conducted a write-in campaign to help him avoid the embarrassment of losing to Rep. Dean Phillips, a long-shot challenger. Biden won that race, the Associated Press reported shortly after polls closed.
Trump is eager to wrap up the nomination race and more fully turn his attention to Biden, a matchup that many Americans dread after their acrimonious 2020 contest. The race would feature the unprecedented dynamic of Trump splitting time between the campaign and the courtroom, given he faces 91 criminal charges related to his handling of classified documents and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The New Hampshire GOP primary is now a one-on-one battle between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump. WSJ’s Molly Ball breaks down how the two candidates are gearing up for the election and what the exit of Ron DeSantis means for the race.
More than a dozen challengers at one point competed for the nomination. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s exit from the race on Sunday awarded Haley the one-on-one matchup against Trump she had long sought. She plans to start a swing through South Carolina on Wednesday and her campaign and a super PAC supporting her said they would buy TV advertising in the state.
Haley has argued that the country needs a younger leader than Trump, 77, or Biden, who is 81.
“Most Americans do not want a rematch between Biden and Trump,” Haley said Tuesday night. “The first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the party that wins this election.”
She holds more traditional Republican views, including a foreign policy that stands against the isolationism rising in the party. She has championed more U.S. aid for Ukraine, while Trump has questioned that and said his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which he often described in positive terms, could bring about a resolution to the war.
The country’s Republican apparatus has increasingly lined up behind Trump, delivering a sense of inevitability reflected by the immediate endorsement by DeSantis despite months of vicious attacks by the front-runner. “It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” the governor said. DeSantis just days earlier had argued that Trump made the party vulnerable in a general election.
Haley, who came in third in Iowa, engaged in a frantic burst of campaigning ahead of the voting, hoping that a Republican primary electorate heavy with independent voters could surprise and deliver either an outright victory or a closer finish than polls suggest.
She has cautioned Republicans that Trump’s legal and personal baggage could be detrimental against Democrats in the general election, and pointed to polling showing her beating Biden by a wider margin than Trump.
But even some of Haley’s allies say she didn’t prosecute the case against Trump early or strongly enough. While some of her cautiousness on the campaign trail faded in the final days before the New Hampshire balloting, Haley failed to generate political electricity around her candidacy. By contrast, enthusiasm for Trump has grown.
“He’s the only one who can save this country,” truck driver Steven Langone, 69, said outside his polling place in Nashua.
Ainslee Machaffie, 67, a retiree from Nashua, voted for Haley because she wants “a fresh new look for our country,” though added, “I don’t think she has a chance, unfortunately.”
Haley’s path gets tougher after New Hampshire.
By choosing to participate in Nevada’s Feb. 8 primary, rather than the state’s caucus, she won’t secure any nomination delegates there. Next up is South Carolina’s Feb. 24 primary. Most of the state’s top elected officials backing him.
Trump looked beatable when he announced his campaign shortly after the 2022 midterm elections, when he was blamed for party losses after endorsing candidates in some key races.
His rebound took off last spring when Trump was indicted over hush-money paid to a porn star on the eve of the 2016 election, marking the first time in American history that a former president has faced criminal charges. That case was criticized by Republicans, and even some Democrats said it was weak, fearing it would only help Trump.
Doug Rofrano, 67, a retiree living in Hopkinton, had been looking at the other Republican candidates with an open mind earlier in the cycle, but as Trump’s charges piled up, he decided he needed to support the former president. “I feel that some of the things that are being done to him are just totally undemocratic.”
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