With a decisive win in New Hampshire on Tuesday, former President Donald Trump hopes to eliminate his final opponent from the 2024 presidential contest and solidify his hold on the GOP.
At the last event of his Granite State primary campaign, Trump told fans in Laconia on Monday night, “Every day the Republican Party is becoming more and more unified.” “We only have two opponents left now, and one of them will probably leave tomorrow. We started with thirteen.”
The former governor of South Carolina is firmly opposing Trump’s attempt to call off the GOP primary after just two nominating contests. Haley issued a warning that America doesn’t do “coronations” before of a crucial day that might determine whether she can assert the justification and the funding to continue in the race. Additionally, she is cautioning that Trump’s attempts to disqualify her from the competition are incompatible with Republican principles.
“We don’t do coronations in America. We think that there are options. We support democracy,” she declared on Monday at a gathering in Franklin, New Hampshire.
The results of the country’s first primary will have a significant impact on the options available to voters in November’s general election.
— Haley’s best chance to defeat Trump early and halt what appears to be his inexorable march toward the nomination, which would complete his remaking of the GOP in his image, is in New Hampshire.
The race will also determine if the former governor of South Carolina can realistically continue her campaign through her home state next month and beyond, as well as whether she can persuade large-scale backers to support her.
— The Democratic National Committee’s rearranging of the party’s election schedule has caused a disagreement with the state, which is why Biden’s name will not appear on the ballot on Tuesday and no delegates will be given out. However, there is a formalized attempt to write the president’s name in ballots, serving as an informal barometer of public sentiment. Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota is running for president, although he hasn’t launched a national campaign yet.
A hectic seven days in New Hampshire
Following Trump’s overwhelming victory with more over 50% of the vote in the Iowa caucuses last week, voters started casting ballots.
After Florida Governor Ron DeSantis withdrew on Sunday, the race is now between the former president and his former ambassador to the UN. Haley has been trying to take advantage of Trump’s error in conflating her with former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She claims that neither 81-year-old Biden nor her 77-year-old GOP opponent are intelligent enough to hold office for two terms.
However, Haley’s efforts to collect momentum have been put to the test by Trump, who has secured the support of previous GOP contenders DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. On Monday night, the latter three showed up in person to campaign alongside Trump in Laconia. Additionally, Scott and Burgum increased their pressure on Haley to withdraw from the race. The governor of North Dakota declared, “We can end this primary tomorrow in New Hampshire with a fantastic win.” “Let me hear you scream if you want the race to end tomorrow,” Scott continued.
Additionally, on Saturday night, the former president took a powerful group of state leaders from South Carolina to Manchester in an attempt to persuade Haley to drop out of the contest so that he would be the front-runner and the winner in February.
Trump presents an image of a country besieged by an increase in crime, immigration, and economic ruin. Whether true or not, this message appeals to Republican voters who are troubled by the situation at the southern border, who are facing increased costs and interest rates, and who believe that their lives were better off during his presidency.
There is more darkness in Trump’s rhetoric. At a rally on Saturday night, thousands of followers applauded as he falsely claimed that there was electoral fraud in 2020, called the people found guilty of the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol “hostages,” and claimed that his numerous legal troubles were proof of political persecution. In a preview of his potentially explosive second term, he contended that presidents should be exempt from prosecution. On election eve in Laconia, Trump reiterated his accusation that he was duped out of office in 2020, pointing out that he would have been finishing out his term in government if he had won a second term.
Haley is cautious about upsetting Republicans who continue to support Trump. She’s talking exclusively about his anomalous reign and the way the election was attacked, calling it “chaos” that “rightly or wrongly” trailed the former president. She is appealing mostly to independents who can enter the GOP primary in New Hampshire and is urging voters to make a generational shift. She claims that Republicans are fed up with losing and that Biden would most likely beat Trump in November’s general election.
Haley declared, “We ought to aim to win over the majority of Americans.” “But electing a new generation of conservative leaders is the only way we’re going to accomplish that.” According to certain polls, Haley easily defeated Biden in November. Her claims that Trump is an obvious loser in the general election have been muddied, though, by the president’s precarious political position. In reality, the former president has prevailed in numerous crucial swing states when Trump and Biden have faced off in hypothetical matches.
The former governor of South Carolina delivered her final remarks on Monday night in Salem, New Hampshire, at a brand-new hotel situated in a posh shopping center in the suburbs. She gave a hint about the kind of moderate to occasionally wealthy people she hopes to win over. However, the less conservative and college-educated people she does well with do not represent the majority of Republicans, even in the Granite State, where the electorate is more moderate than in many later primary states. She must thus eliminate independent voters in order to advance.
Is Haley able to justify continuing?
In addition to the pressure Haley faces from primary calendar math, she also needs to transform a party that Trump has controlled since 2016 in order to stand a hope of winning the primary. It will be difficult to argue that she has a route to the nomination if she is unable to win in New Hampshire.
Before DeSantis withdrew, a CNN poll from the University of New Hampshire showed Haley trailing Trump by 13 points in a two-candidate contest. That difference was considerably greater than the 11 points that separated them after testing all three options. But New Hampshire has a reputation for upending preconceived notions. In order to defeat then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush in the Granite State primary in 2000, John McCain needed a massive turnout of undeclared voters, something Haley needs to accomplish. But Haley may still be dealing with a South Carolina issue, much like the late senator from Arizona. Bush stormed to the GOP nomination after winning a brutal primary in her home state.
Haley’s most ardent backer, Republican governor of New Hampshire Chris Sununu, has been tempering his expectations for Tuesday night, indicating a lack of vigor after Haley finished third in Iowa last week. He is now making the case that she doesn’t actually need to start winning primaries until Super Tuesday in early March. However, finishing second in a two-candidate contest in New Hampshire doesn’t seem like a huge accomplishment in a state that is most favorable for her to defeat Trump right away.
Sununu said to CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday, “I think she’s going to surprise a lot of people here if we really have high voter turnout.”
Haley occasionally sounds like she’s running for the candidacy of a party that has disbanded. Her conventional fiscal conservatism and aggressive foreign policy are more akin to the pre-Trump period than they are to the nationalism and populism of the former president’s “Make America Great Again” campaign. Her mannerisms and approach, which are folksy, scripted, and emphasize her duties as a military spouse and mom while talking common sense, also mark a significant change from the chaos, self-absorption, and turmoil that characterized Trump’s life and political career. In the GOP campaign, the majority of the evidence to date,reveals, however, that the party’s activist base is willing to put up with what Haley refers to as his “chaos” and that his allegations of 2020 election fraud and his legal issues are the product of political persecution by the Biden administration.
The former governor of South Carolina has recently begun to make the case that, given their advanced ages and the likelihood of a rematch in the 2020 presidential election, Biden and Trump are more alike than different.
“A rematch between Trump and Biden is not something that seventy percent of Americans want,” Haley stated. “Most Americans don’t think well of Trump and Biden.” “Are we really going to say that we’re okay with having two 80-year-olds run for president?” she said.If Haley isn’t able to surprise everyone on Tuesday, that might be the option given to Americans.
