Donald Trump also secured first place in the Republican primary in New Hampshire. His competitor Nikki Haley is left behind. But the Republican doesn’t want to give in.
In the fight for the US Republican presidential candidacy, former incumbent Donald Trump clearly won the second primary election.
In the state of New Hampshire in the northeastern United States, after more than 91 percent of the votes were counted early Wednesday morning (local time), he was leading with just over 54 percent of the votes, according to forecasts by the Washington Post and CNN. His competitor Nikki Haley came in second with around 43 percent – her hopes of a close race or even a victory were not fulfilled. A new edition of the election campaign between Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden is becoming increasingly likely.
Haley was nevertheless combative and announced that she wanted to stay in the race. “There are dozens of states still ahead of us,” she said in her speech after the vote.
During his victory speech in the city of Nashua, Trump verbally attacked his rival and literally foamed with anger. “She’s doing a victory lap and we beat her so clearly,” he said. The 77-year-old called his former ambassador to the United Nations an “imposter” and declared: “She will not win.” But his speech made it clear that he definitely sees Haley as a danger.
Despite a good starting point for Haley, Trump scores
The Republican race, for which there were originally far more candidates in the field, is now just a duel between Trump and Haley. Since Florida Governor Ron DeSantis left office, there have been no other serious candidates. A victory would have been particularly important for the 52-year-old in New Hampshire, which is located in the northeastern tip of the USA, in order to gain new momentum for her election campaign.
Haley, who as a diplomat once had to represent Trump’s confrontational foreign policy on the international stage, is seen by the public as more politically moderate than her former boss and is also much more moderate in her rhetoric. In New Hampshire she hoped for success because of the less radically minded electorate in the conservative camp.
In the small state with around 1.4 million inhabitants, there is also the special feature that voters who do not feel like they belong to the Republicans per se and are not registered as such (so-called independents) also take part in the party’s primaries may. The votes of this group mostly benefit the more moderate Republican candidates. Trump claimed in his speech that Haley only got her result with the “tremendous number” of votes from this group.
Anyone who wants to vote in the USA must register. The sometimes high hurdles for registration are one of the reasons for comparatively low voter turnout in the USA. According to official figures, there are more than 870,000 registered voters in New Hampshire, more than 340,000 of them as independents. New Hampshire’s chief election supervisor, David Scanlan, told CNN that overall voter turnout was high. However, he did not give any specific figures. He had previously predicted a turnout of around 322,000 voters for the Republican primary.
Anyone who wants to become a presidential candidate in the USA must first prevail in internal party primaries. The candidates are then officially chosen at party conferences in the summer. The actual presidential election is on November 5th. While the first primary election in Iowa last week was voted at party meetings, the so-called caucus meetings, people in New Hampshire decided on Tuesday in the classic way at polling stations.
Haley hopes to play at home in South Carolina
The next milestone for Haley will be voting in late February in her home state of South Carolina, where she was governor for six years. A defeat would therefore be particularly embarrassing for Haley. But even there, Trump is leading by a wide margin in polls.
In the USA, it is not ruled out that Haley could aim for the office of vice president at Trump’s side. However, in the past few days she has verbally attacked her competitor more violently than ever. Trump recently indicated that he had a candidate in mind for the office – but did not name any names. There is speculation about the ultra-radical Elise Stefanik, who is particularly loyal to him and sits for the Republicans in the US House of Representatives and is campaigning heavily for Trump.
There are four criminal proceedings underway against the former president – including because of his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. At that time he lost to the Democrat Biden, who now wants to defend his place in the White House despite skepticism in his own party. For many Democrats, the 81-year-old is too old, although Trump is only four years younger.
Biden achieves symbolic success
The Democrats also voted on their candidate for the presidential election in New Hampshire on Tuesday – and named Biden the winner. However, his success is more of a symbolic nature, because the delegate votes secured in the state will not be taken into account at the Democratic nomination convention in the summer. The background is an internal dispute among the Democrats over the conduct of the primaries. As the incumbent, Biden has no serious competition in the Democratic primaries.
