LACONIA, NEW HAMPSHIRE - JANUARY 22, 2024: Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) (2nd-R) speaks as Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump (L), North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum (2nd-R) and Vivek Ramaswamy (R) listen during a campaign rally in the basement ballroom of The Margate Resort. Ramaswamy, Burgum and Scott all ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination but later dropped out and endorsed him. Trump rallied supporters the day before New Hampshire voters will weigh in on the Republican nominating race with the first-in-the-nation primary. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
America's record-setting 45th President Donald Trump became the only person ever to win the New Hampshire primary three different times, after decisively defeating former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley tonight in the Granite State's Republican primary.
Multiple sources called the race within one minute of the polls closing at 8:00 p.m. EST.
With many votes still to be counted, Mr. Trump was leading 55% to 44% at the close of polls according to Newsmax.
The former U.S. President was heavily favored to win going in by as many as 20 percentage points.
Mrs. Haley outperformed expert projections. But she still faced demands to drop out of the race. Many GOP members publicly declared that her campaign is being propped up by Democrats.
Conservatives claimed she "bad-mouthed America" by playing to what they say are liberal talking points on the eve of the New Hampshire vote. Her critics in the GOP also accused her of being inauthentic.
Staunch Republicans aligned against Haley to the point that every major GOP politician in South Carolina endorsed Mr. Trump over Mrs. Haley.
Immediately after New Hampshire was decided, former 2024 Republican primary candidate turned Trump endorser Vivek Ramaswamy called for her to drop out of the race. He told Fox News' Jesse Waters, during an interview, that Haley has "no viable path to defeat him [Trump] through the front door."
Ramaswamy added that Haley not suspending her campaign sends a signal that "her only path and what she is playing for is for Donald Trump being eliminated by forces outside of this process, by the judicial system, by secretaries of state in places like Maine or elsewhere. And I think that's downright wrong. I think it's wrong for the Republican Party. I think it's wrong for this country."
He further pointed out that the very people, like Democrat Reid Hoffman, who are paying for lawsuits against Trump are now becoming the largest donors for Nikki Haley.
Her defeat in New Hampshire tonight, where Democrats were allowed to vote in the Republican primary, came on the heels of a resurfaced video from April 2021 in which she vowed that she would not seek the GOP nomination if Donald Trump ran.
Haley served in the Trump administration as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2017 to 2018. Mike Pence, Trump's former Vice President also ran against the former President but suspended his own campaign on Oct. 23, 2023.
Several other politicians, pundits and professional analysts predicted via video tonight that Haley will end her campaign straightaway.
In the video from 2021, when asked if she would support Trump if he runs again, Haley responded, "Yes."
"I would not run if President Trump ran and I would talk to him about it," she said. "That’s something that we will have a conversation about at some point, if that decision is something that has to be made. But yeah, I would, absolutely."
It does not appear, at this writing, that Mr. Trump has Haley on his list of potential running mates in November's general election or if he would accept her endorsement if and when she does suspend her campaign.
After the January 6, 2021 riots in Washington, Haley said this:
"I think he’s going to find himself further and further isolated. I think his business is suffering at this point. I think he’s lost any sort of political viability he was going to have. I think he’s lost his social media, which meant the world to him. I mean, I think he’s lost the things that really could have kept him moving."
Mr. Trump was banned from liberal social media platforms but soon established his own to compete against them.
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