Trump a step closer to Biden rematch, Haley vows to fight

Donald Trump has decisively won the New Hampshire Republican primary, defeating his nearest and only rival in the field, Nikki Haley, and coming one step closer to securing the party’s nomination to be the candidate for the President of the United States.

- Prashant Jha

Winning a little over 54% of the vote in a state where both registered Republicans and independents are allowed to choose, Trump effectively put an end to Haley’s run for the nomination. While she bagged a little over 43% of the vote, losing by a double-digit figure, Haley patted herself on the back for her performance in the state, declared that New Hampshire was “first, not the last” of the primaries, and shifted her focus to South Carolina, her home state, which votes in the primaries on February 24.

But Tuesday was Trump’s day, who appeared annoyed at Haley’s decision to stay on in the race and called her an “imposter” who lost but behaved like she had won. According to exit polls, Trump won more votes among men and women, young and old, and across the state’s geographies, showing his continued hold over the core Republican Party base.

After Trump’s dramatic win in Iowa last week, where he secured more votes than his nearest competitors Ron DeSantis, Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy put together, DeSantis and Ramaswamy dropped out and endorsed Trump. But Haley stayed on in the race, betting on independent voters, the support of the state’s governor Chris Sunnu, and an aggressive campaign against Trump, to pull off an upset win. In a sign of the challenges Trump will face in a general election, there were two segments where Haley polled more votes than Trump — college graduates and independent voters. But that was the extent of her success with Trump sweeping every other demographic.