WASHINGTON — Top Republicans — and Biden’s presidential campaign — rushed Wednesday to identify former President Donald Trump as the presumptive GOP nominee after he handily won the Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire.
Trump defeated Nikki Haley, his former U.N. ambassador, is up more than 10 percentage points in a moderate state with an open primary that would have been expected to play to her strengths. His victory on Tuesday came days after him won the nation’s first primary in Iowa is Jan. 15.
Instead of pushing Haley, the former South Carolina governor, into a two-person race for the GOP nomination as hoped, the results in New Hampshire showed Trump in the many GOP primaries still to come in the next few months , is practically unbeatable. Republican senators like John Cornyn of Texas and Deb Fischer of Nebraska gave their endorsement as Trump’s victory became clear.
“Barring unforeseen events, Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist and partner at Firehouse Strategies. “It’s simply a matter of who Republican voters want. In Iowa, New Hampshire, but also in every national poll and every pre-election poll in the states, Trump is ahead by a large margin. So at the end of the day, elections have consequences and Republicans like Donald Trump.”
The former president’s victory set up a general election rematch with President Joe Biden, who nearly tripled his closest Democratic rival’s vote total in New Hampshire despite not even appearing on the ballot.
Haley is skipping the next nominating contest, the Feb. 8 Nevada caucus, to focus on her home state’s Feb. 24 primary, where she also faces a significant poll deficit. She has little realistic chance of winning the nomination and could formally withdraw her bid in the coming days, said Todd Belt, a professor at George Washington University and director of the school’s political management program.
“She’s going to have to have a really tremendous ground and air game to be anywhere competitive, not to be embarrassed, frankly,” he said. “I give it a 50:50 chance [she drops out] in the next day or two.”
The Biden campaign told reporters that the general election campaign has arrived.
“I want to start by stating the obvious: The results from New Hampshire confirm that Donald Trump is all but assured of the GOP nomination,” Julie Chavez-Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager, began her remarks on a phone call Wednesday morning Reporter.
Trump’s presumptive nomination represents a tough choice for voters, Chavez Rodriguez and other campaign officials said. In previews of likely themes during the next nine months of a general election campaign, they pointed to Biden’s support for abortion rights and Trump’s attacks on the democratic system.
Trump attacks Haley: “She lost”
Trump won both of his first two nominating contests, the New Hampshire primary and the Iowa caucuses, something never achieved by a non-incumbent Republican candidate. The double-digit margins in both states left little doubt about the future direction of the race.
In a ceremonial speech after the recording almost 55% In Tuesday’s vote, Trump also claimed victory in Nevada and predicted an “easy” victory for South Carolina.
He took multiple shots at Biden and Haley, whose upbeat tone in a speech earlier in the evening appeared to anger the front-runner.
“She gives a speech like she’s won,” he said. “She didn’t win. She lost.”
With the support of centrist New Hampshire GOP Gov. Chris Sununu, Haley needed a win in the Granite State to have a chance at the nomination, Trump said.
“Actually, she did very poorly,” he added. “She had to win. The governor said, ‘She will win, she will win, she will win.’ Then she completely failed.”
Trump also repeated the lie that his loss to Biden in 2020 was the result of fraud.
Haley says she’s ready for a long race
Haley vowed to at least continue running around South Carolina, saying she’s “in it for the long haul.” She has reserved $1.8 million in television advertising time in South Carolina. accordingly ad tracking firm AdImpact and debuted a 30-second commercial Wednesday that called a Biden-Trump race “a rematch that no one wants.”
But the odds are against them.
Trump won the majority in the first two nomination contests, just like he did faces four criminal trials.
The prosecutions have not hurt Trump among Republican voters, who largely view them as illegitimate political exercises. Complete the survey Iowa And New Hampshire showed that most GOP voters would still support Trump if he were convicted.
But even a conviction is unlikely to roil the Republican race because of the timing. None of the criminal cases are likely to be heard before March 5, the date known as Super Tuesday since nearly half the delegates will be up for grabs in 15 nominating contests.
Technically, Haley could stay in the race as long as she wants, but funding a competitive campaign will be less possible as Trump continues to rack up victories, Belt said.
Donors would not continue to contribute to a campaign that had shown no signs of success, he said.
“You don’t want to throw bad money after bad,” he said.
Republicans in Congress see racial segregation narrowing
Key Republican senators appeared on Tuesday and Wednesday almost ready to name Trump their party’s standard-bearer for 2024.
Former Senate GOP leader Cornyn endorsed Trump on Tuesday night, saying it was “clear that President Trump is the choice of Republican voters” and urged his GOP colleagues to rally around the former president.
“I have seen enough,” he wrote a social media post on Tuesday evening. “To beat Biden, Republicans must unite around a single candidate.”
Fischer from Nebraska too offered her agreement on social media as the New Hampshire results came in.
“It’s time for Republicans to unite around President Donald Trump and make Joe Biden a one-term president,” she wrote.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, congratulated Trump on his victory in the New Hampshire primary post on social media.
“Our Republican leaders in the House and the majority of Republican senators support his reelection, and Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire strongly supported him in the elections,” Johnson said. “It is now time for the Republican Party to unite around President Trump so we can focus on ending the disastrous Biden presidency and expanding our majority in Congress.”
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Capitol Hill Wednesday that he was skeptical that Haley could remain in the race based on the results of the New Hampshire primary.
“I think the path is very narrow for them, and it gets even narrower after South Carolina (elementary school),” he said.
The few endorsements showed Trump’s strength in the party, which has morphed into a group of Trump loyalists over the past eight years, Belt said.
“They came very quickly,” he said of the commitments. “They know better than to anger Trump voters because they are active, they vote and they are organized.”
Not finished yet
But some Republican senators were not yet ready to support the front-runner in interviews Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol.
Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst said she “probably” wouldn’t support a candidate, although she didn’t rule it out entirely.
“I just think it’s good that all of these constituencies have the opportunity to choose the person they think is best qualified,” Ernst said.
But she also praised Haley when asked if Haley could find a way to win the Republican nomination for president.
“I think she’s a great candidate and a great leader, but I don’t know what the polls will look like going forward,” Ernst said.
Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said she might support a candidate but did not say whether it would be Trump or Haley.
“I haven’t spoken out in favor of this in the presidential election in the past, but… I’m thinking about it. Yes. I’ll just say it,” Capito said.
In a later interview, Capito said the New Hampshire win was a “good win” for Trump, noting that Haley acknowledged that in her speech.
Arkansas Republican Sen. John Boozman said he hasn’t yet decided whether he would vote in the presidential primary. But he pointed out that polls suggest Trump is likely to become the nominee.
Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley pledged his support for the eventual nominee without mentioning Trump.
“Just rest assured – I will support the Republican nominee because we cannot spend another four years dealing with inflation, an insecure border and the national security problems associated with criminals entering this country.”
Mitt Romney of Utah, a persistent Republican critic of Trump, said he would not support Trump for president even though the party’s nomination contest is “all but complete.”
