Campaign signs are seen on a road in Concord, New Hampshire on January 18, 2024.
Timothy A. Cleary/AFP/Getty Images
It’s now a two-person race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and if former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley doesn’t defeat former President Donald Trump in the New Hampshire primary this Tuesday, the fight could be over.
With Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dropping out of the race this Sunday, Haley now has a one-on-one chance against Trump, who shut out his rivals in the 2016 Republican primary.
And it’s up to Republican primary voters in the Granite State, where he has reshaped his image since Trump’s landslide victory eight years ago began his path to dominance in a party, to decide whether he can run with the former president for a third straight year. Will stick. .
New Hampshire, where independents play a large role in GOP primaries and where popular Gov. Chris Sununu is her primary campaign surrogate, may be Haley’s only chance to cause a political earthquake in the Republican race.
However, another big win for Trump could effectively end the Republican primaries after just two states and set up a general election rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden.
Here are six things to keep in mind in the New Hampshire primary:
Is Hailey’s big bet worth it?
Haley’s campaign has focused for months on New Hampshire, identifying its more moderate voters as her best chance to win one of the four states (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina) that have launched the race for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. .
This is in part because the state allows “undeclared” voters (with no party affiliation) to vote in primary elections. Undeclared voters make up the majority of New Hampshire’s general electorate.
For Haley, the polls — which include national and state polls and CNN’s Iowa entry poll — have long shown she is eager to get moderates and Republicans to move on from Trump.
She has also been helped by the support of Sununu, one of the most prominent anti-Trump voices in the Republican Party. (Endorsements from home-state governors have their limits: DeSantis had the support of Kim Reynolds of Iowa and still failed.)
Sununu, in an interview with NBC News on Sunday, tried to downplay expectations of a Haley victory, arguing that it would not be important for Haley to win the primary until the Super Tuesday primary in early March.
“I’ve always said you want a one-on-one race before Super Tuesday,” he said. “I think Super Tuesday is the time to really start winning states.”
If Trump wins, will the Republican race be over?
Haley said Sunday that he will “definitely” stay in the Republican presidential race until the Feb. 24 primary in South Carolina.
“South Carolinians know I won that state twice. They know I’m a fighter. “They know I’m going to the end,” he said. “I’m also an accountant. So we can be strong in South Carolina. We saved a lot of money to be sure.”
In fact, this Sunday he announced plans for his first event in South Carolina since the New Hampshire primary: a Wednesday night rally in North Charleston.
Yet presidential candidates rarely admit that the end is near. After all, DeSantis said he was in the long-term Republican race a week ago.
If Trump wins, it will make history: In the modern history of presidential campaigns (since the Iowa caucuses began serving as the official kickoff, followed by the New Hampshire primary), no non-incumbent Republican has won both states.
And doing so will make it harder for Haley to convince donors to pour money into her campaign and voters to support her in the months leading up to the South Carolina primary. She would lose her only chance for another win before that because Haley filed to run in Nevada’s state primary instead of competing in the GOP-run state caucus. Delegates are awarded by the Nevada Caucus.
Some in the party are already anxious to see the nomination race end eight days after it began.
Republican Senate campaign chairman, Montana Sen. Steve Daines said on social media on Sunday: “Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee. “I encourage all Republicans to unite behind him because it will take all of us to unseat Joe Biden, take back the Senate and control the House.”
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