CONCORD, N.H. — Nikki Haley hasn’t quit her quest for the White House. But Donald Trump’s victory Tuesday in New Hampshire’s primary might as well have marked the unofficial start of the general election campaign.
Fresh off back-to-back wins in the first two contests, Trump accused Haley of delaying the inevitable by staying in the race. In a rare moment of agreement, President Joe Biden also said it’s “clear” Trump won the GOP nomination.
And national and state Republican leaders have intensified the pressure on Haley to step aside so the party can focus on a rematch between Biden and Trump.
”Republican voters have sent a clear message — they want to see the GOP unite around our eventual nominee which is going to be President Donald Trump,” Georgia GOP Chair Josh McKoon and two of the party’s national delegates said in a statement.
The blowback illustrates Haley’s bind as she continues her campaign despite long odds. Haley faces a tougher test in her home state of South Carolina, where polls show Trump with far stronger support among Republican voters than he had in more moderate New Hampshire.
And the map for Haley doesn’t improve much after the Feb. 24 vote, when Georgia and other states with deeply evangelical GOP electorates hold their primaries.
”I’m looking at the map and the path going forward, and I don’t see it for Nikki Haley,” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel told Fox News. “I think she ran a great campaign. I think there is a message from the voters which is clear. We need to unite around our eventual nominee, which is going to be Donald Trump.”
Haley and her allies aren’t showing any signs of dropping her bid. Her campaign reserved $4 million worth of airtime for an ad blitz in South Carolina starting this week. And she’s set this week to lobby high-dollar donors for cash in California, Florida and New York.
”America doesn’t do coronations. We hold elections. We believe in democracy, and we believe in giving voters their say,” said Eric Tanenblatt, one of Haley’s top Georgia backers.
The New Hampshire results also underscored Trump’s vulnerabilities in a potential rematch with Biden. Nearly half of Republican voters in both Iowa and New Hampshire chose a Trump alternative. And exit polls there show Trump lost swing voters, moderates and independents, along with those with a college degree. All were key elements of the fragile coalition that helped Biden eke out a slim victory over Trump in Georgia’s 2020 election.
In another red flag for Trump’s campaign, about one-third of primary voters say they believe he broke the law either by trying to overturn his 2020 defeat, encouraging the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, or with the classified documents that investigators found at his Florida home after he left the White House.
”The fact of the matter is, Donald Trump needs to win back over the kinds of voters that Nikki Haley appeals to if he’s going to beat Joe Biden,” said Martha Zoller, a former Republican congressional candidate and radio commentator who backed Haley.
“So I agree with others who have said he needs to enjoy the win in New Hampshire,” Zoller said. “But then he needs to figure out a way to unite the party, and that means fighting a few more battles with Haley.”
Some Georgia Republicans pushed back on the rush to declare Trump the victor.
Cody Hall, a top adviser to Gov. Brian Kemp, criticized the state GOP for urging Haley to end her bid. Kemp hasn’t endorsed any candidate, but he has remained cool toward Trump after the former president backed former U.S. Sen. David Perdue’s failed primary challenge two years ago.
“The GAGOP’s role is to support our party’s nominees, not try to decide them,” Hall said. “One would think they should have learned that lesson in 2022.”
But even some of the state’s most prominent Republican skeptics of Trump acknowledged Haley’s dim prospects.
U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year and advocated for a new, younger generation of party leaders untethered to Trump. But after Tuesday’s primary, he said it was “abundantly clear” that Trump would win the nomination.
“I am calling on my fellow conservatives to join me in uniting behind Donald Trump for president,” he said.
Credit: The Washington Post
Credit: The Washington Post
