Donald Trump can hardly be denied the nomination as the Republican presidential candidate in the USA: The ex-president defeated his only remaining competitor, the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, in his party’s important primary election in the state of New Hampshire on Tuesday (local time). , and was around eleven percentage points ahead after around 90 percent of the votes were counted. Haley congratulated Trump, but announced that he would continue to fight.
In his victory speech, Trump attacked President Joe Biden of the Democrats, whom he called the “worst in the history” of the United States. The Republican called the United States a country in decline and failure. Trump also attacked Haley, saying that if the Feb. 24 primary reaches her home state of South Carolina, “we’ll win easily.”
The 52-year-old countered that the race for the Republican presidential nomination is “far from over.” The “worst kept secret in politics” right now is how much the Democrats would like to run against Trump, Haley said. “A Trump nomination is a Biden victory.”
Haley was hoping for a surprise in New Hampshire. Among other things, she was betting that voters registered as independents in the east coast state would also be allowed to take part in the primaries, which would favor moderate politicians like her. According to the authorities, voter turnout was very high.
US President Biden said it was now clear that Trump would be the Republican candidate. “And my message to the country is that the stakes couldn’t be higher. Our democracy. Our personal freedoms,” Biden said.
The head of the Munich Security Conference, Christoph Heusgen, also expects Trump to run for office based on the results in New Hampshire. “I assume that he will be the Republican candidate,” said Heusgen on ZDF’s “Morgenmagazin.”
However, it is not yet clear that Trump will actually win the presidential election in the end, he emphasized. It is unclear whether moderate Republicans will actually vote for Trump.
According to the former German ambassador to Washington, Peter Wittig, Trump is “unstoppable” on the way to running for president. A new victory for Trump in the November election is also “completely realistic,” Wittig said on Deutschlandfunk. Such a scenario would then be “an enormous acid test for transatlantic relations,” he emphasized.
This is also because the Trump camp is “much better prepared” this time than in 2016, said Wittig. There are plans for a second presidency and “many followers who are positioning themselves to take on important offices.” Germany and Europe would have to prepare for “a really tough confrontation”.
Trump is still extremely popular among the right-wing base despite the numerous trials against him, which now include four charges. He had already won the Republican primary in the state of Iowa last week.
With the victory in New Hampshire, the 77-year-old took a big step towards his party’s nomination for the presidential election in November. No candidate has ever lost the race for the Republican presidential nomination after winning the primaries in the first two states.
The presidential election in the USA will take place on November 5th. The Democrats held unofficial primaries in New Hampshire on Tuesday, which Biden won and gave him a symbolic boost. In the race for the White House, the president is once again focusing on the issue of abortion rights, with which the Democrats were already successful in the 2022 midterm elections.
However, many Democratic politicians and voters have doubts that Biden, at 81, is the right candidate. He is already the oldest president in US history. In the 2020 presidential election, Biden won against Trump, who had a four-year term marked by chaos and scandals and who still does not recognize Biden’s election victory.
