Donald J. Trump’s victory within the New Hampshire main on Tuesday supplied him the second of a gap pair of wins within the Republican nomination battle that accelerated his push for the celebration to coalesce behind him and deepened questions in regards to the path ahead for Nikki Haley, his lone remaining rival.
The defeat of Ms. Haley in New Hampshire got here eight days after the previous president trounced Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida so completely in Iowa that it drove Mr. DeSantis from the race. Mr. Trump and his allies have turned his twin early wins right into a milestone — declaring, after simply the primary two contests, that the celebration must unite behind him now to organize for a rematch in November between Mr. Trump and President Biden.
No Republican candidate has ever gained the primary two states after which not in the end secured the presidential nomination, a undeniable fact that Mr. Trump himself famous in his victory speech in Nashua, N.H.
“If you win Iowa and also you win New Hampshire, they’ve by no means had a loss — there’s by no means been — so we’re not going to be the primary, I can inform you,” Mr. Trump advised the group.
No matter what comes subsequent, the win on Tuesday sealed Mr. Trump’s standing because the celebration’s standard-bearer within the historical past books: Earlier than Mr. Trump, the one Republicans who’ve ever gained each the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire main have been sitting presidents.
The race was known as on Tuesday night time by The Related Press the second the final polls closed, sapping any drama from the end result. Minutes later, Ms. Haley raced to talk first at her personal election celebration in Harmony, N.H., forcefully urgent her case that nominating Mr. Trump could be tantamount to conceding the final election to Democrats.
“You possibly can’t repair the mess in the event you don’t win an election,” she mentioned. “A Trump nomination is a Biden win and a Kamala Harris presidency.”
Ms. Haley pledged to press ahead regardless of the loss on Tuesday. “New Hampshire is first within the nation — it isn’t the final within the nation,” she declared. “This race is much from over.”
Earlier than Mr. Trump even took the stage on Tuesday night time, the previous president known as Ms. Haley “delusional” in a social media publish, one among a number of he wrote in all capital letters whereas she spoke.
It was a preview of a caustic and typically crude speech by the previous president, wherein he used the nationwide platform of a victory deal with to bash his lone remaining rival, whose voters he would ultimately must win over within the fall.
“She didn’t win. She misplaced,” Mr. Trump mentioned, calling her an “impostor” that he had overwhelmed “so badly.” He mocked Ms. Haley for delivering an overconfident concession speech: “This isn’t your typical victory speech, however let’s not let any individual take a victory when she had a really unhealthy night time.”
Republicans started nearly instantly to ratchet up stress on Ms. Haley to give up.
“It’s time to drop out,” mentioned Taylor Budowich, the chief government of Mr. Trump’s tremendous PAC. Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, who serves within the Republican management and had beforehand endorsed the previous president, known as Mr. Trump on social media the “presumptive” nominee. And Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who has been crucial of Mr. Trump, formally backed him, declaring, “Republicans must unite round a single candidate.”
Ms. Haley, Mr. Trump’s former United Nations ambassador, had searched for months to slim the 2024 main to a one-on-one race with him. She acquired what she needed on Sunday with Mr. DeSantis’s exit, giving her solely a single full day earlier than voting started in New Hampshire to prosecute her case to unbiased voters and Republicans that she could be the strongest Republican candidate in opposition to Mr. Biden.
In New Hampshire, she did the whole lot she may, from pouring beers to holding infants, as she blitzed throughout the state alongside its Republican governor, Chris Sununu, who had endorsed her.
However New Hampshire voters appeared to look previous Ms. Haley’s warnings that Mr. Trump, who has been indicted 4 instances within the final yr and faces 91 felony prison counts, would convey “chaos” to the marketing campaign path and be uniquely susceptible to defeat in a normal election.
The assaults between Mr. Trump, 77, and Ms. Haley, 52, had sharply escalated in current days.
He returned to his nativist playbook to emphasise her start title, after which purposefully mangled it in social media posts, and even indulged in birther conspiracy theories about her eligibility to serve as a result of she is the daughter of Indian immigrants (she was born in America). Ms. Haley questioned Mr. Trump’s psychological acuity after he confused her title with Nancy Pelosi’s, utilizing the incident to press for generational change.
In her concession speech on Tuesday, she cited that verbal slip-up as somebody shouted “Geriatric!”
Ms. Haley advised the group, “The primary celebration to retire its 80-year-old candidate goes to be the celebration that wins this election.”
Now, Ms. Haley should discover traction past the primary two states, the place nearly all of the campaigning and promoting had occurred. Her tremendous PAC has spent greater than $71 million to this point — and 99.9 p.c of these funds had been poured into Iowa or New Hampshire, in line with federal data.
Ms. Haley faces what may very well be an excruciatingly lengthy month. She opted to not compete within the Nevada caucuses with Mr. Trump on Feb. 8 after the state celebration made guidelines favorable to him.
“I’m happy to announce we simply gained Nevada,” Mr. Trump declared on Tuesday. The formal Nevada caucuses should still be two weeks away, however as a result of Mr. Trump is the lone remaining critical G.O.P. candidate within the working for delegates, he’s anticipated to win all of them.
The subsequent important conflict between Mr. Trump and Ms. Haley will likely be Feb. 24, within the main in Ms. Haley’s dwelling state of South Carolina, the place she as soon as served as governor.
Because the calendar slows, it’s Mr. Trump with the political momentum.
Within the final 10 days, 4 of Mr. Trump’s vanquished rivals have all lined up behind him: Mr. DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and South Carolina’s junior senator, Tim Scott, whom Ms. Haley first appointed to the Senate.
“You could actually hate her,” Mr. Trump joked to Mr. Scott onstage on Tuesday.
Mr. Scott made his solution to the microphone subsequent to Mr. Trump and replied, “I simply love you.”
On Monday, Mr. Trump was additionally endorsed by a Republican lawmaker from Ms. Haley’s dwelling state, Consultant Nancy Mace, whom Mr. Trump had tried to oust after she harshly criticized his conduct across the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the Capitol. Ms. Haley had campaigned with Ms. Mace in 2022.
“You’re seeing this unification second occurring, when in a standard main you may see it occur in June or July,” Senator J.D. Vance, Republican of Ohio, who campaigned this week for Mr. Trump in New Hampshire, mentioned in a short interview. “You’re seeing it in January, as a result of the race is successfully over.”
Ms. Haley has pledged to push ahead.
“There are dozens of states left to go,” Ms. Haley mentioned on Tuesday night time. “And the subsequent one is my candy state of South Carolina.”
The Haley marketing campaign has already introduced a $4 million advert marketing campaign in South Carolina and has fund-raising journeys to New York, Florida, California and Texas within the subsequent two weeks to refill her coffers. Ms. Haley’s marketing campaign and her allies have argued that Mr. Trump stays close to the 50 p.c mark in assist within the first two states, an indication of potential vulnerability as a result of as a former president he’s universally recognized.
The strategists main the Trump marketing campaign, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, predicted in their very own memo forward of the vote on Tuesday that Ms. Haley could be — in all capital letters — “demolished and embarrassed” in South Carolina if she didn’t give up the race earlier than then.
Scott Reed, a veteran Republican strategist who had labored on a brilliant PAC supporting former Vice President Mike Pence, mentioned Ms. Haley had now ceded her greatest alternative to attain an outright early win.
“It is a black-and-white enterprise — you both win otherwise you lose,” Mr. Reed mentioned, earlier than invoking the well-known rental-car business wars of the previous. “It’s laborious to go on being Avis — ‘We’re quantity two or quantity three!’ — behind Hertz.”