No Republican who has won both Iowa and New Hampshire has ever lost the nomination battle. (Deposit)
Manchester:
Former US President Donald Trump cruised to victory in New Hampshire, brushing aside challenger Nikki Haley and all but cementing his hold on the Republican nomination as he seeks another term in the White House.
Here are five takeaways from Tuesday night.
Trump seems unstoppable
No Republican who has won both Iowa and New Hampshire has ever lost the nomination battle. This historical data point is gold for Trump, now widely seen as the party’s presumptive standard-bearer heading into November — despite multiple legal scandals and a chaos-filled record as president.
The race now turns to Nevada, where Trump already claims an almost certain victory, and next month to Haley’s home state of South Carolina, where he leads the former governor by some 30 percentage points .
All 50 states will have a say in the months-long process, but it’s possible that Republicans will have their nominee by April — or sooner.
“I say the general election starts tonight,” former Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who backed Trump after he dropped out, said after Tuesday’s primary.
Haley’s Razor-Thin Path
Having finished third in Iowa and second in New Hampshire, Haley’s position is precarious. But she told her supporters she’s still in the fight — at least as far as South Carolina.
“This race is far from over,” she insisted. “South Carolina voters don’t want a coronation, they want an election. And we’re going to give them one.”
But she faces considerable obstacles, including the fact that other defeated rivals and their big donors are already flocking to Trump.
“If Haley can’t compete with Trump in South Carolina, her race is over,” Russ Muirhead, a government professor at Dartmouth College, told AFP.
Wandering, angry
He swore on live television, called the United States a “failed country” and vowed revenge on his rivals – and it came from the night’s winner.
Trump clearly had an opportunity to appear magnanimous in his victory, but he failed to seize it in New Hampshire.
Trump denounced at length the fact that Haley did not accept defeat.
“She has failed sorely,” he said, before launching into rambling tirades about illegal immigration, fuel prices and his dystopian vision of a nation supposedly collapsing.
He also reiterated his false claims that he won the presidential election and the state of New Hampshire in 2020, said without elaborating that Haley could soon find himself under investigation, and threatened revenge on those who ‘had been upset.
“I don’t get too angry, I get revenge,” he boasted.
The Haley campaign responded quickly.
“If Trump is in such good shape, why is he so angry?” he asked.
Traffic signs
New Hampshire exit polls have provided intriguing details about Republican voters — and raised questions about how Trump will expand beyond his base.
Trump supporters are all in. When asked whether Trump would be fit to serve as president even if convicted of a crime, 87% said yes.
Among Haley’s more moderate supporters, that figure fell to 12 percent.
About the same percentage, Trump supporters said they did not believe Biden legitimately won the presidency in 2020, while only 13% of Haley voters agreed.
Good night for Biden
The president himself also won in New Hampshire — and he wasn’t even on the ballot.
Because New Hampshire Democrats insisted on holding their primaries on Tuesday, against the wishes of the national party, the state’s vote became purely symbolic. Biden hadn’t even filed nomination papers.
He still won, thanks to a write-in campaign, handily defeating two little-known Democratic rivals who were hoping to attract attention.
And while Trump and Haley faced off, the incumbent president hit the campaign trail in the swing state of Virginia, where he sought to put reproductive rights at the forefront of his re-election bid.
Trump was “determined” to impose new restrictions on abortion.
After the New Hampshire vote, Biden issued a statement acknowledging the inevitable: “Trump will be the Republican nominee.”
“My message to the country is that the stakes couldn’t be higher,” Biden said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
