New Hampshire will hold its first-in-the nation primary on Tuesday in what may be the last chance Republicans have to stop Donald Trump from running away with the nomination, as Nikki Haley chases an upset in the Granite state.
Eight days after the former president’s record-setting victory in the Iowa caucuses, he is now locked in an increasingly bitter showdown with Haley, who has staked her candidacy on a strong showing in the more moderate New Hampshire. Ron DeSantis, the former Florida governor, exited the race on Sunday, adding his name to the stack of Republican officials consolidating behind Trump.
Trump leads by double-digit margins but is considered more vulnerable in the state, where independent voters make up nearly 40% of the electorate and can choose to vote in either party’s primary.
“We always buck the trend in New Hampshire,” the state’s Republican governor, Chris Sununu, told voters as he escorted Haley across the state on the eve of the election.
Sununu, one of the few Trump critics left in the party, said a show of support in New Hampshire would vault her into next month’s contest in South Carolina. He has suggested Haley could win the primary outright. More recently, he has moderated expectations, insisting that she has already exceeded expectations as the only candidate still standing in the primary against Trump.
Republicans are predicting record turnout – and good weather, seen as a possible boon to Haley who is relying more heavily on voters who don’t typically participate in the party’s primary.
The stakes could not be higher for Haley. She is barnstorming the state, from the “suburbs to the seacoast”, trying to persuade anti-Trump independents and open-minded conservatives to back her long-shot bid.
Trump by contrast has been in and out of the state, holding raucous evening rallies between appearances in court. New Hampshire propelled Trump to the Republican nomination in 2016 after he came in second in the Iowa caucuses. This year, Trump hopes to notch a victory large enough to effectively extinguish Haley’s campaign.
For much of her nearly year-long campaign, Haley carefully avoided Trump, instead drawing implicit contrasts with calls for a “new generation” of leaders in Washington and a proposal to instate cognitive tests for older politicians. But in the final days before New Hampshire’s primary, she went after him more aggressively, questioning his mental fitness and accusing him of cozying up to dictators and autocrats.
Trump responded with insults and misrepresentations while accusing her campaign of relying on the support of “globalists” and liberals to win. In an ugly series of social media posts, he revived the birtherism conspiracy that she was ineligible to be president because her parents were not US citizens when she was born. This is false; Haley, the South Carolina-born daughter of immigrants from India, is eligible. Trump also appeared to mock her Indian ancestry by referring to – and mispelling – her given name, Nimarata. Haley has always gone by her middle name, Nikki.
Haley and her allies insist she has a path forward even if she doesn’t pull off an upset. Improving on her third-place finish in Iowa would be enough. But if she can’t win in New Hampshire, with an electorate seen as far more friendly to her brand of Republicanism, analysts said it will be hard to make the pitch to voters – and donors – that she can win anywhere else.
Haley has scheduled a rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday night. It will be accompanied by the launch of a $4m investment in television, radio and digital advertising to air across South Carolina.
Democrats will also hold a primary on Tuesday, but Joe Biden’s name won’t be on the ballot. Though turnout is expected to be low, Democrats will have the choice between voting for Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota, and Marianne Williamson, an author and self-help guru who ran for president in 2020. Meanwhile, some of the president’s supporters in the state have urged Democrats to write in Biden’s name on their ballots.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
