AP Calls New Hampshire Primary For Trump

Update (2002ET): With just under 20% of the votes counted, the Associated Press has called the New Hampshire primary for Trump – who so far has 54.2% of the vote to Haley’s 44.8%. The former president is performing roughly in line with expectations, and the former UN Ambassador doing better than expected so far.

0.6% of voters crossed their arms and voted for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis anyway, despite his dropping out of the race and endorsement of Trump.

According to AP:

The result was a setback for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who invested significant time and financial resources into winning the state. She was the last major challenger in the race after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ended his presidential bid over the weekend, allowing her to campaign as the sole alternative to Trump. Haley intensified her criticism of the former president, questioning his mental acuity and pitching herself as a unifying candidate who would usher in generational change.

The appeals failed to resonate with enough voters. Trump can now boast of being the first Republican presidential candidate to win open races in Iowa and New Hampshire since both states began leading the election calendar in 1976, a striking sign of how rapidly Republicans have rallied around him to make him their nominee for the third consecutive time.

Biden ‘insurgent’ rival and Bill Ackman pick Dean Phillips is garnering a shocking 20.4% vs. the sitting president, with thousands of write-in votes uncounted, Bloomberg reports.

Phillips, a US representative from Minnesota, told Bloomberg News Monday that anything less than 80% for the president would signal weakness for Biden as he appears headed for a rematch with former President Donald Trump.

Biden allies noted that the president didn’t campaign in the state, and that any win by a write-in candidate is extraordinary.

And what’s this?

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With record turnout expected in New Hampshire’s COP Primary, and despite the on-the-ground polls saying otherwise, the ‘uniparty’ and its establishment media puppets continue to push Haley as a potential spoiler of Trump’s triumphant return.

One member of the Washington elite (thouhg he’d likely not appreciate that association) who won’t be supporting her is Senator Rand Paul who appeared on Tucker Carlson tonight to make his feelings clear.

“…it’s one thing to find Nikki Haley distasteful, to acknowledge that she’s a bloodthirsty feminist harpy who should be nowhere near power. Most reasonable people have reached that conclusion. But to start a website: Never Nikki, suggests a level of anti-Nikki commitment that’s interesting and worth talking about,” Tucker Carlson says to Paul.

His response pulled no punches:

“Well nobody ever accused me of going halfway into anything. And it really, it gets to me at a very basic level, it gets to me when I see people who I think care more about the borders of Ukraine than they care about our own southern border.

And I see these people every day because they’re the entire Democrat caucus up here. But they’re half of my caucus, half of my Republican caucus is, as we speak, ready to sell out. And they’re ready to sell out fake border reform in exchange for what they really want, which is to send more of your tax dollars to Ukraine. I think Nikki Haley fits right in that camp.

I think she’s from the McConnell-Dick Cheney wing of the party. And this is the antithesis of everything I believe in. I’ve spent a few years trying to promote the ideals of liberty. There is a wing of the party that believes in that, and I wanted to make sure anybody that follows what I do knows that there’s no way, shape or form I could support Nikki Haley.”

And we suspect Paul won’t have to worry for long. Following Trump’s convincing 30-point win in last week’s Iowa caucuses and Ron DeSantis’ decision to drop out of the race and endorse the former president, it looks like tonight’s Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire is Trump’s to lose.

According to the latest polls (via RealClearPolitics), Trump holds over 55 percent support among likely GOP voters in the state, leading his closest competitor and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley by 1around 20 percentage points.

Florida Gov. DeSantis stood at just 6 percent in the poll, which was conducted before he announced the end of his presidential bid on Sunday. Assuming that many of his supporters follow his endorsement and support Trump going forward, the former president’s lead could be even bigger than the latest poll indicates.

As Statista’s Felix Richer notes, if the results from New Hampshire actually go Trump’s way, he would be the first non-incumbent Republican candidate to win in Iowa and New Hampshire, two states often considered crucial in the presidential primaries as they host the first contests in the nomination process.

Winning in Iowa and/or New Hampshire can make or break a candidate’s momentum and many presidential bids have hit an early wall in either of the two states.

As Statista shows in the chart below, the majority of Democratic and Republican candidates who won in Iowa and/or New Hampshire went on to win their party’s presidential ticket.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Since 1972, 9 out of 13 Democratic winners in the Iowa caucuses won the nomination, while 7 out of 12 Republican winners did the same.

New Hampshire appears to be even more decisive in the race for the Republican candidacy, as 11 out of 13 Republican winners in the state’s primary elections won the nomination since 1972.

Trump remains the strong favorite to win the Republican party nomination…

For Democratic candidates, the New Hampshire results aren’t quite as important, with “just” 7 out of 13 winners ending up winning the Democratic nomination.