Closing summary
Donald Trump made a huge step towards claiming the Republican presidential nomination for the third time since 2016 after winning New Hampshire’s primary by a margin of, as of this writing, about 11 percentage points over Nikki Haley. Nonetheless, the former South Carolina governor says the race isn’t over yet, and plans to make a stand against Trump in her home state, even though polls there show her trailing him. The Democrats also held a primary, which reached an unsurprising result in a roundabout way. Joe Biden won the contest handily over long-shot candidates Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson, but only through a write-in campaign organized by outside groups, since his campaign honored recent Democratic rule changes and stayed away from the state. Following Trump’s victory, Biden released a statement saying he believed Trump would be the Republican nominee, and warned that the US economy and democracy are now “at stake”.
Here’s what else happened tonight:
Trump continued to insist victory in the 2020 election was stolen from him, even though it was not.
Phillips, who was walloped by New Hampshire Democrats, will continue campaigning for president.
House speaker Mike Johnson encouraged his fellow Republicans to unite around Trump.
George Santos, the expelled former Republican congressman, turned up at Trump’s election night watch party.
New Hampshire’s electorate was quite different from Iowa’s, according to exit polls from CNN.
Updated
Biden says it's 'now clear' that Trump will be GOP nominee, warns US democracy, economy 'at stake'
Joe Biden said in a statement that Donald Trump won the Republican presidential nomination with his victory in New Hampshire tonight, and appealed to disaffected independents and Republicans to vote for him in November.
“It is now clear that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee,” Biden wrote in a statement distributed by his campaign. “And my message to the country is the stakes could not be higher. Our Democracy. Our personal freedoms – from the right to choose to the right to vote. Our economy – which has seen the strongest recovery in the world since COVID. All are at stake.”
He also weighed in on the write-in campaign held unofficially by his supporters in the state, which allowed him to win the New Hampshire Democratic primary even though his name was not on the ballot:
I want to thank all those who wrote my name in this evening in New Hampshire. It was a historic demonstration of commitment to our democratic process. And I want to say to all those Independents and Republicans who share our commitment to core values of our nation — our Democracy, our personal freedoms, an economy that gives everyone a fair shot — to join us as Americans.
Updated
About 61% of the Republican primary vote has been counted, and Donald Trump has a lead of about 10 percentage points over Nikki Haley.
He has 54% of the vote, compared to Haley’s 44.5%. That margin is substantial, but tighter than Iowa, where Trump triumphed with 51% of the vote, compared with runner-up Ron DeSantis’s 21.2%, and Haley’s 19.1%.
We have a tracker updating with the latest results:
Updated
Nikki Haley opened her remarks on a conciliatory note, before hitting Trump in a way many Granite staters wished she had done much sooner on the campaign trail.
“I congratulate Donald Trump on his victory tonight. He earned it. And I want to acknowledge that,” she said, striking a starkly different tone from Trump, who attacked her right off the bat in his remarks.
“With Donald Trump, you have one bout of chaos after another. This court case, that controversy, this tweet, that senior moment,” she said, in a reprisal of her stump speech rhetoric. “You can’t fix Joe Biden’s chaos with Republican chaos.”
She then questioned Trump’s mental fitness.
“I’ve long called for mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75. Trump claims he’d do better than me on one of those tests. Maybe he would, and maybe he wouldn’t,” she said, smiling. “But if he thinks that, then he should have no problem standing on a debate stage with me!”
The crowd erupted in sustained applause. Later this evening, Haley’s campaign sent out a press release accusing Trump of “ranting and raving about Haley” after his primary win, and asking: “If Trump is in such good shape, why is he so angry?”
Updated
Nikki Haley has a message for Donald Trump: see ya in South Carolina.
In a speech following this evenings primary that was part concession, part rallying cry, Haley said her campaign had done what it set out to do: force a one-on-one showdown with the former president.
Vowing to stay in the race, she declared: “New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last in the nation. This race is far from over.”
“I’m a fighter and I’m scrappy and now we’re the last one standing next to Donald Trump,” she continued.
She was sharper in her remarks than she had been on the campaign trail.
“Most Americans do not want a rematch between Biden and Trump. The first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to win this election,” she said. “I say it should be the Republicans!”
She also sounded confident that she could pull off the longed-for upset she sought in New Hampshire in her “sweet state” of South Carolina, which holds its primary on 24 February.
“Every time I’ve run for office in South Carolina, I’ve beaten the political establishment,” she said. “They’re lined up against me again. That’s no surprise. But South Carolina voters don’t want a coronation. They want an election.”
Updated
Trump has wrapped up his speech, but before he did, he opined that if Nikki Haley had beaten him, she would find herself under investigation.
He, of course, knows a thing or four about that, since he has been indicted twice by federal prosecutors, and once each by district attorneys in Manhattan and Fulton county, Georgia, while also being the defendant in several civil suits.
“Just a little note to Nikki. She’s not going to win. But, if she did, she would be under investigation by those people in 15 minutes. And I could tell you five reasons why already. Not big reasons – a little stuff that she doesn’t want to talk about. But she will be under investigation within minutes. And so would Ron have been, but he decided to get out.”
It’s unclear what “stuff” he was referring to in relation to Haley.
In 2013, then South Carolina governor Nikki Haley appointed a congressman from the state, Tim Scott, to fill a vacant Senate seat – one he still holds to this day.
But the long history between the two Palmetto state politicians has led them on separate paths, and Scott is on stage right now with Trump, whom he endorsed after dropping out of the presidential race.
The former president remarked on this dynamic, saying to Scott: “You must really hate her.”
The senator then came over the podium, to tell Trump: “Oh, I just love you.”
Updated
Trump is now casting his victory in the race for the GOP nomination as inevitable, pointing to his victory in the Iowa caucuses last week, and tonight in the New Hampshire primaries.
“If you win both, they’ve never had a loser. Let me put it that way. When you win Iowa, and you win in New Hampshire, they’ve never had a loss,” he said.
Trump is the first Republican since then president Gerald Ford in 1976 to win both Iowa and New Hampshire. Ford indeed went on to win the nomination, but lost in the general election to Democrat Jimmy Carter.
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Trump repeats 2020 election lie in victory speech
Donald Trump never misses an opportunity to repeat his false claim that he won the 2020 election, and today is no different.
“We won in 2016. And if you really remember, if you want to play it straight, we also won in 2020, by more,” he said, to cheers from the crowd. “And we did much better in 2020 than we did in 2016.”
Updated
Donald Trump opened his speech with an attack on Nikki Haley’s claim that she’d be a better candidate against Joe Biden.
“We’ve won almost every single poll in the last three months against crooked Joe Biden, almost, and she doesn’t win those polls,” Trump said.
Trump is fibbing, as he often does. While some polls have shown him ahead of the president, others have not.
Trump takes stage at watch party in Nashua, New Hampshire
Meanwhile, in Nashua, Donald Trump has taken the stage at his watch party.
“God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood was playing as he arrived to chants of “USA! USA! USA!” from the audience. It looks like Senator Tim Scott and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy – both Republicans who withdrew from the race and endorsed him – are by his side.
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Long-shot Democratic candidate Dean Phillips vows to stay in race, despite loss to write-in Biden
Dean Phillips took the stage at 8.30pm to congratulate Joe Biden, but said that Biden’s margin of victory was “by no means” what should be expected from an incumbent president.
“Joe Biden is a good man. He’s a fine man … But I gotta tell you, everyone, he cannot win. The polls are saying he cannot win, his approval numbers are saying he can’t win,” Phillips said.
“And the fact that an unknown congressman from Minnesota, who two weeks before the election [Phillips actually entered the race in October] said ‘I’m gonna come up here and run for president’ just got 21% that says something, too, my friends.”
Flanked by supporters and campaign staff, Phillips gave out high fives from the stage. In the days before the vote, Phillips had suggested that winning 20% in New Hampshire would represent success, and he appeared delighted with the result.
“I’ve had so much darn fun I don’t know what to do with myself,” he said.
Phillips urged his supporters to “go and have a little fun tonight” – there’s an open bar here. He said he will remain in the Democratic primary race, even though he has missed the filing deadline in states including Florida and North Carolina.
“We’re going to go to South Carolina, then we’re going to Michigan, then we’re going to 47 other states,” Phillips said.
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House speaker Mike Johnson calls on Republicans to get behind Trump
The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, has called on the GOP to support Donald Trump after his victory in the New Hampshire primary tonight.
“Our House Republican leaders and a majority of Republican Senators support his reelection, and Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire have strongly backed him at the polls. It’s now past time for the Republican Party to unite around President Trump so we can focus on ending the disastrous Biden presidency and growing our majority in Congress,” the speaker said in a statement.
It’s not a hugely surprising statement from Johnson, who endorsed Trump in November, not long after Republicans elected him leader of the House of Representatives. After the 2020 election, he was an architect of a failed attempt by lawmakers to support Trump’s attempt to get the supreme court to disrupt Joe Biden’s election win.
Updated
Beyond just vowing to stay in the race, Nikki Haley also made one more attempt to coax Donald Trump to the debate stage.
The former president has refused to debate any of the other Republicans who challenged him for the party’s nomination, Haley included. That didn’t stop her from challenging him to a parley, saying it would prove that he is fit to serve:
Nikki Haley: "The other day Donald Trump accused me of not providing security at the Capitol on January 6th. Now, I've longed called for mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75...he should have no problem standing on a debate stage with me." pic.twitter.com/LVbb9Hf7Ds
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 24, 2024
Biden campaign says New Hampshire results prove the 'Maga movement has completed its takeover' of GOP
Joe Biden’s re-election campaign appears to be welcoming a rematch with Donald Trump.
In a just-released statement, campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez said:
Tonight’s results confirm Donald Trump has all but locked up the GOP nomination, and the election denying, anti-freedom Maga movement has completed its takeover of the Republican party. Trump is offering Americans the same extreme agenda that has cost Republicans election after election: promising to undermine American democracy, reward the wealthy on the backs of the middle class, and ban abortion nationwide.
Joe Biden sees things differently. He’s fighting to grow our economy for the middle class, strengthen our democracy, and protect the rights of every single American. While we work toward November 2024, one thing is increasingly clear today: Donald Trump is headed straight into a general election matchup where he’ll face the only person to have ever beaten him at the ballot box: Joe Biden.
Updated
A groan just went up at Dean Phillips’ election night party, after TV networks announced Joe Biden had won the Democratic primary.
Phillips wasn’t expecting to win tonight. At campaign events, he had suggested that garnering 20% of the vote in New Hampshire would be a success.
His supporters will now be watching for more detailed results, after a write-in campaign for the president was clearly successful.
Bill Barry, a retired law enforcement officer, said Phillips, who entered the Democratic race in October 2023, just hasn’t had time to reel in Biden.
“Unfortunately, he got in late,” Barry, 64, said.
“But, you know, you got to give the guy credit for three or four months. He’s been out there on the campaign. He’s been doing it the New Hampshire way: getting out there meeting the people, going into town halls, going to restaurants and shaking hands and meeting people.”
Phillips is showing no signs of dropping out of the race. A member of his campaign told the Guardian that tomorrow about 12 campaign staff are flying to South Carolina, which has its primary on 3 February.
Updated
Haley vows to stay in campaign despite Trump win
Speaking at her campaign headquarters in Concord, Nikki Haley congratulated Donald Trump on his victory.
But she says she’s staying in the race.
“New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last,” she said.
Updated
Donald Trump’s win in New Hampshire has made one Republican senator who was holding out on endorsing him change his mind.
Texas Republican John Cornyn had not weighed in on the presidential race, but made clear last year that he thought someone besides Trump should the party’s nominee. He has now endorsed the former president, after his win in New Hampshire this evening:
I have seen enough. To beat Biden, Republicans need to unite around a single candidate, and it’s clear that President Trump is Republican voters’ choice. Four more years of failed domestic policies like the Biden Border Crisis and record-high inflation, and failed foreign…
— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) January 24, 2024
The Dallas Morning News reported that on a call with reporters last May, Cornyn said, “I think President Trump’s time has passed him by and what’s the most important thing to me is we have a candidate who can actually win.”
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At Nikki Haley’s watch party, the playlist is upbeat and supporters are dancing and cheering.
It’s not the scene you’d expect at the headquarters of a campaign that just lost in New Hampshire. But nevertheless, team Haley is jamming to “Proud Mary” and “Eye of the Tiger”.
At Donald Trump’s election night watch party in Nashua, several cheers went up in the crowded ballroom, and some hats were thrown in the air, when two big screens announced: “Trump wins New Hampshire!”
Kari Lake, a candidate for Senate in Arizona, gleefully told reporters: “Maga! Make America great again!”
Meanwhile the Beatles song “Revolution” is playing outside the ballroom for no obvious reason.
Biden wins New Hampshire primary, despite not campaigning in state
Joe Biden has won New Hampshire’s Democratic presidential primary, the Associated Press reports, despite the president not campaigning in the state.
New Hampshire had in years past held the first primary in the nation, and the second contest of the Democratic nomination calendar after Iowa’s caucuses. But under Biden, the Democratic National Committee has changed its schedule, and South Carolina will be the first state to vote for the Democratic nominee on 3 February.
Biden’s name did not appear on the ballot in New Hampshire, but his supporters organized a write-in campaign to show support for his presidency, and also to remind him of their desire to remain the first state to hold a primary. That campaign appears to have paid off.
The biggest outstanding question now is how big Donald Trump’s victory in New Hampshire was.
The greater the gap between him and Nikki Haley, the more pressure the former South Carolina governor will be under to abandon the race – though she has previously said she will continue her campaign, no matter what.
Trump wins New Hampshire Republican primary
Donald Trump has won New Hampshire’s Republican presidential primary, the Associated Press reports.
This is Trump’s second victory in the two states that voted in the GOP nomination process. Last week, he won overwhelmingly in Iowa’s caucuses.
The next state to vote is Nevada, where the Republicans will hold caucuses on 8 February. Polls show Trump is ahead there.
Updated
Voting concludes in New Hampshire presidential primary
It’s 8pm, and the final polling stations have just closed in New Hampshire’s presidential primary. Now we await results.
George Santos shows up at Donald Trump watch party
Disgraced ex-congressman George Santos has shown up at Donald Trump’s election watch party.
Queuing at the bar, he denied that he is here as an official campaign surrogate. “I’m just here to have fun,” he told the Guardian. “It’s a three-hour drive for me.”
Santos was expelled last month from the House of Representatives. Asked what he is up to these days, Santos smiled: “Having fun. I’m enjoying my pink slip moment.”
Trump’s election night party is at the Sheraton Nashua, where rooms start at $489 per night. Its website states: “The grand exterior of this castle-like hotel draws inspiration from medieval European castles, while the interior is built upon creating community-fluid spaces that feel warm and inviting.”
The hotel is buzzing ahead of Trump’s expected victory in the New Hampshire primary election. People wearing Maga and USA hats, and stars and stripes scarves, are wandering about in the bar area. Vivek Ramaswamy popped into the hotel restaurant and was greeted by fans wanting handshakes.
The focal point is a fancy hotel ballroom where guests are gathering and making noise. The familiar Trump lectern and row of American flags is on stage. Trump surrogates such as Ramaswamy, Byron Donalds and Kari Lake are in the room doing media interviews.
But as the years go by and election cycles come and go, one thing doesn’t change: journalists swapping tales about their lack of internet access on the campaign trail.
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As Nikki Haley chases an upset in the Granite state, someone will be missing from her election night watch party: her husband.
Michael Haley is currently deployed on a yearlong mission in Africa with the South Carolina national guard. He previously deployed to Afghanistan in 2012, while she was governor of South Carolina.
Haley references his service and her experience as the “proud wife of a combat veteran” frequently in her stump speech. In it, she recalls dropping him off at “4am for another yearlong deployment”, watching her husband join hundreds of soldiers depart for a country they’ve never been “all in the name of protecting America”.
“They’re willing to sacrifice their lives and their families, because they still believe in this amazing experiment,” she said in Salem, New Hampshire, on Monday.
She uses this story as a segway to talk about her platform for veterans and criticize Biden’s handling of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. She also invoked Michael to respond to the interruptions by protesters during her events.
In Exeter, as security removed a protester holding a banner that said “Oil Sellout”, Haley said: “I am always happy to see a protester because my husband and many military men and women sacrifice every day for them to be able to do that.” It was one of her strongest applause lines of the evening.
Haley is not entirely without family on the trail. Her children, Rena and Nalin, and son-in-law, Josh Jackson, have been a constant presence at her campaign events in the final days before the primary.
Updated
Another batch of New Hampshire polls just closed at 7.30pm, per the Associated Press.
Voting in the last polling stations in the state still active will conclude at 8pm.
The Cook Politics Report also believes Donald Trump has won New Hampshire’s primary:
I've seen enough: Donald Trump (R) wins the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, defeating Nikki Haley (R).
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) January 24, 2024
At the Guardian, we rely on the Associated Press to call these races, and they have not weighed in yet.
While it’s too soon to call the Republican primary, the Cook Political Report believes Joe Biden has won the state’s Democratic primary, even though his name was not on the ballot and he did not campaign in the state:
I've seen enough: Pres. Joe Biden (D) wins the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary.
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) January 24, 2024
Supporters of the president nonetheless organized a write-in campaign, and it appears to have worked.
CNN has done some exit polling in New Hampshire that underscore how the state is different from Iowa, whose caucuses Donald Trump won overwhelmingly last week.
New Hampshire’s electorate is known for being independent, and CNN’s data shows a split over Trump’s baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election, while his Maga philosophy has relatively few takers:
First CNN exit polls from New Hampshire --
— David Wright (@DavidWright_7) January 23, 2024
Do you think Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election?
Yes: 49%
No: 49%
Are you a part of the MAGA movement?
Yes: 32%
No: 64%https://t.co/YRUoJujXr8
There are also far more moderates in the Granite state than in Iowa:
Other early findings --
— David Wright (@DavidWright_7) January 23, 2024
Composition of the electorate:
Registered Republican: 49%
Registered undeclared: 47%
Ideology:
Very conservative: 24%
Somewhat Conservative: 39%
Moderate: 31%*
*was 9% in Iowa
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Nikki Haley’s voters sharply differ from Trump’s over whether he should continue his campaign if convicted of one of the many things he has been accused of doing:
CNN exit poll of New Hampshire GOP primary voters:
— David Wright (@DavidWright_7) January 23, 2024
Trump fit for presidency, if convicted of a crime?
Yes: 50%
No: 47%
AMONG TRUMP VOTERS
Yes: 86%
No: 11%
AMONG HALEY VOTERS
Yes: 12%
No: 85%https://t.co/YRUoJujXr8
We’ll find out soon what this all means for Trump and Haley tonight.
First primary polls close in New Hampshire
It’s 7pm, which means primary polling places in many parts of New Hampshire have closed. However, some sites are staying open until 8pm, so we won’t have full results until after that.
Expect to see some results announced over the coming hour.
Donald Trump’s allies are predicting victory by “a big margin” in New Hampshire and are seeking to isolate Nikki Haley as the last Republican refusing to acknowledge that Trump will be the party nominee.
Speaking at the Sheraton Nashua hotel ahead of Trump’s election watch party, Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Trump’s Super Pac, Make America Great Again Inc, said: “A win is a win and we’re very confident that President Trump will win by a big margin here in New Hampshire. The polls have indicated that since the beginning of this race and the enthusiasm on the ground, you can tell. We have the best ground game in this state.”
Leavitt, who hails from New Hampshire and was a staffer in the first Trump administration, added: “We’ve been saying for a long time that Nikki Haley does not have a pathway to this nomination, and it’s been true for months. It certainly is true after Iowa, where she came in an embarrassing third place and it will be true again after tonight. That’s a decision Nikki Haley has to make.
“She seems to be the only Republican left in America who doesn’t realise that President Trump is going to be the nominee and who doesn’t want to start taking this fight to Joe Biden and the Democrats,” Leavitt added.
Joe Biden took the stage after Kamala Harris, but protesters upset at his administration’s policy towards Israel interrupted his speech about 10 times.
Almost as soon as the president took the stage to begin speaking about abortion rights, a man carrying a Palestinian flag started to shout, “How many kids have you killed?” After he appeared to have been escorted out, another woman interrupted Biden by shouting, “Israel kills two mothers every hour!”
During each interruption, the crowd on stage behind Biden started to chant, “Four more years!” and “Let’s go Joe!” Biden initially stood silently at the podium while the chants continued, but he later started to try to speak louder than the protesters.
“This is going to go on for a while,” he said after numerous interruptions. “They’ve got this planned.”
The Biden administration is under pressure from activists for its perceived support of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Israel, whose incursion into Gaza since the deadly 7 October attacks by Hamas has led to the deaths of an estimated 25,000 Palestinians.
In New Hampshire, a campaign has been launched to encourage people to write in the word “ceasefire” on their primary ballots in protest of Biden’s support for Israel.
Updated
Harris attacks Trump for involvement in overturning Roe v Wade during campaign's first joint rally
President Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris kicked off their first joint campaign rally of 2024 in Manassas, Virginia today, with a plea for voters to send them back to the White House to protect abortion rights.
Harris took the stage before Biden and spoke in front of a group of primarily women, many of whom were carrying red and blue signs that read “DEFEND CHOICE.” She framed the fight over abortion access as being about freedom.
“Extremists have proposed and passed laws that criminalized doctors and punished women. Laws that make no exception even for rape or incest,” Harris said. “And let us all agree: one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her want to do with her body.”
Virginia is a telling first stop for the 2024 campaign. In elections last year, Virginia Republicans failed to take control of the state legislature after campaigning on a 15-week abortion ban. Seven other states have also voted directly on abortion-related ballot referendums since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade; in each case, abortion rights supporters won. Now, Biden and Harris are betting that outrage over Roe will send them back to the White House.
Although the Republican primaries are still unfolding in New Hampshire, Harris took aim squarely at former president Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner. Trump appointed three of the US supreme court justices who overturned Roe.
“He is the architect of this health care crisis, and he is not done, and the extremists are not done,” Harris said, warning of the possibility that a Republican administration may enact a national abortion ban.
Haley Super Pac strategist vows to keep supporting her
A few hours before polls are to close in the Granite State, Mark Harris, a top strategist for a pro-Nikki Haley Super Pac, vowed to support Donald Trump’s main challenger for as long as she is in the race.
Speaking from the lobby of the DoubleTree Hotel, an election day gathering spot for politicians and journalists, Harris predicted Haley would far exceed her goal of doing better than she did in the Iowa caucuses, when she finished third with 20% of the vote. Like Haley, he refused to be specific about what a strong showing in New Hampshire would look like.
“We have a clear path to victory,” he said, visibly frustrated by questions from reporters that suggested otherwise. “Her campaign [has] shepherded the resources to be able to fight a full fight in South Carolina. We’re ready to fight that full fight with her.”
Harris pushed back on any suggestion that Haley would drop out before her home state primary late next month.
“After today, 1% of Republicans who are going to participate in this process will have participated – 99% to go,” he said. “We are focused on the 99% that are left to go.”
“A month is a long time in presidential politics,” he said, noting that there’s more than a month until the South Carolina primaries on 24 February. “When you think back a month ago, if you thought we would be here without Ron DeSantis in the race and all of those other variables and Nikki in the clear one-on-one fight, almost no one in this room would probably have thought that.
“Where we will be a month from now is, Nikki will be on the verge of doing very, very well in South Carolina and setting the table for a great Super Tuesday,” he said.
Updated
It’s not just political bigwigs like Donald Trump and Nikki Haley whose campaigns are counting on New Hampshire.
Long-shot Democratic candidate Jason Palmer turned up today at Cat Alley Café in downtown Manchester, the state’s largest city, where he told a group of intrigued college students that he was hoping to finish third in the party primary.
His candidacy was news to me. I had been working in the cafe, and unknowingly asked the entreprenneur-turned-presidential candidate to watch my bag when I went to get a coffee. I only learned he was a candidate when someone in the group he spoke to informed me.
Palmer, a venture capitalist who is serving on the board of numerous startups and was a former deputy director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, finished off his talk with the students by handing out free gloves that said, “when I’m president in 2032, you can say you got the official gloves from 2024”.
He then sauntered out of the café on his own.
Which is not to say that everyone in Laconia is on board with returning Donald Trump to the White House.
As he waited outside the neighborhood church for his wife to finish voting inside, 73-year-old retiree Peter Spollett described himself as a “big fan of not Trump”.
“Trump’s a fucking disaster. I love this country and I’d never support someone who’d undermine this country as he has,” he said.
Spollett had written in Joe Biden to show support for the president, who he said has “done a great job”.
“Yeah, he’s not perfect, but things aren’t as fucked up as when Trump was there,” he said, adding he wished he was a registered independent so he could have received a Republican ballot, as state law allows, and voted against Trump.
Updated
So friendly is Laconia to Donald Trump that he chose it as the site of his last rally before the New Hampshire primaries.
The former president spoke at a resort in the city, which is at the heart of what is known in the state as its Lakes Region, for its many bodies of water:
The rally was notable because three of Trump’s former rivals for the nomination – entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum and South Carolina senator Tim Scott – campaigned alongside him:
One big name not in attendance was Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who was at one point viewed as Trump’s leading rival for the nomination, but dropped out on Sunday after a weak showing in Iowa’s caucuses. He has endorsed Trump, but may still be smarting from his campaign of insults against him.
Updated
When it comes to Trump country in New Hampshire, look no further than Belknap county, one of two that Donald Trump won three years ago.
He lost the state overall, as every Republican candidate has since George W Bush’s victory in 2000. But in the lakeside town of Laconia, where voters chose Trump in 2016 and 2020, the former president’s faithful were making their way to a church in a quiet neighborhood to give him another shot at victory in November.
As she left the polling station, 52-year-old Denise Forgione recounted how she likes “everything” about Trump.
“He’s a strong leader, and he will get (stuff) done,” she told the Guardian’s US politics live blog. She had voted for him previously, and the only other candidate she was considering this year was Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who on Sunday dropped out and endorsed Trump.
One candidate she had no interest in was Nikki Haley. “She just isn’t in my wheelhouse of what I’m looking for in a president,” Forgione said. Why? “She lies. A lot.”
She wouldn’t go into how she believed the former South Carolina governor had deceived voters, but she expected her to fail in her quest to win the state. “With her, I still think it will be very close, but Trump will take it.”
Updated
Standing outside of a polling place in Derry, Michelle Moge held a sign urging voters to write Joe Biden’s name on the ballot.
“I think it’s important that people know we support him even though we’re not going to have the delegates,” she said.
She understands why some New Hampshire Democrats are upset with the way the party reorganized its primary process, allowing South Carolina to upstage its first-in-the-nation primary status. But Moge understands why.
“We are not a diverse state,” she said of the state’s mostly white population. “I feel sad that we’re not getting that woo-woo but at the same time, it makes sense. South Carolina is a lot more diverse than we are, they should be seen.”
“It’s an interesting idea to me to open it up and make the politics a little more diverse.
“We’ve just got so many old white men – I love Joe, he’s great. Wasn’t my first choice in 2020 but I voted for him because it’s the right thing to do,” she said.
Nodding to the Trump volunteers who were across the sidewalk, cheering and singing songs, she said she was baffled how so many of her fellow New Hampshire voters could still “get behind a man who’s a convicted criminal by a jury of his peers, who’s been convicted as a rapist by a jury of his peers and people are still gonna vote for him”.
Moge sighed heavily: “It’s important to me to say, hey, we’re not doing that. We Democrats see that there is another choice who isn’t a criminal. Vote for him.”
Asked if she was worried Biden might be overshadowed by his nominal challengers Dean Phillips or Marianne Williamson, Moge said it wouldn’t be a bad thing if the president’s campaign felt a bit of pressure.
“Be warned,” she said. Let the results push Biden on policy, she said, adding, “Medicare for All is a wonderful thing. I wanted it before and I want it now. I want an extremely pro-choice candidate. . … I want all these things I don’t have, but I’m going to keep voting for the people who are going to get us closer and closer to that.”
Updated
All eyes are on the results of the Republican primary tonight in New Hampshire, but we are also going to learn how the state’s voters are feeling about Joe Biden, and the two long-shot candidates looking to unseat the president as the Democratic nominee. Here’s the Guardian’s Joan E Greve with a look at Dean Phillips’s and Marianne Williamson’s campaigns in the state, and the write-in campaign in support of the president:
As New Hampshire voters head to the polls on Tuesday, much attention will be paid to the Republican presidential primary, but another race could provide additional clues about the general election in November.
New Hampshire Democrats are moving forward with holding their presidential primary on Tuesday, despite warnings from the national party. The Democratic National Committee decided last year to make South Carolina the first voting state, a move that upended a century-old tradition of New Hampshire hosting the first primary.
Outraged over the voting calendar change, New Hampshire officials have chosen to hold an unsanctioned Democratic primary on Tuesday, although the DNC has said it will not award delegates based on the results. Joe Biden’s name will not appear on the ballot, but his allies have launched a vigorous write-in campaign in support of his re-election.
New Hampshire polls to begin closing at 7pm ET; results expected soon after
Polls in New Hampshire will begin closing at 7pm ET, and results will begin coming in shortly after that.
In 2020, the first results were reported at roughly 7.30pm ET, but Democratic ballots may take longer to tabulate this year because of the expected large number of write-in votes.
Historically, the Manchester and Concord areas have reported results faster, while northern New Hampshire has been slower to count ballots.
As we reported earlier, Nikki Haley has already been declared the winner in Dixville Notch, where all six registered voters backed the former South Carolina governor.
Updated
Two prominent No Labels donors have sued the centrist political group for pulling a “bait and switch” by preparing to back a third-party presidential candidacy after seeking donations to support “bipartisan activism”.
Douglas and Jonathan Durst, cousins who are part of the powerful Durst real estate family in New York, allege that No Labels has “lost its way, abandoned its original mission, and fundamentally betrayed its donors’ trust in the process” in their lawsuit, filed in the New York state supreme court on Tuesday.
The suit seeks damages and reimbursements for the $145,000 that the Dursts donated years ago, when No Labels was founded on the promise of finding governing solutions, the New York Times reported. The suit reads:
This case seeks to hold No Labels accountable for the consequences of its misguided actions that have left its original benefactors like the Dursts feeling bewildered, betrayed and outraged.
No Labels has “shifted seismically from its original mission” and its donors “should not have to stand idly by”, it continues.
Founded in 2009, No Labels is now on the ballot in 14 states and say it will decide in March whether to offer its ballot line to a unity presidential ticket.
Critics say if No Labels does mount a campaign, polling shows more voters likely to peel from Joe Biden than Trump, handing the latter the White House for a second term should he be the Republican nominee.
The Dursts’ lawsuit continues:
A third ticket option is a clear break from No Labels’ prior goal of uniting the two parties in Congress to pursue common sense solutions — instead, it incites division amongst Americans.
Nikki Haley’s campaign raised $1.5m in the first two days after Ron DeSantis dropped out of the Republican primary race on Sunday, her campaign told Fox News today.
In an interview with the outlet, Haley said:
Everybody wants to talk about big dollar donations. These are all small donations. I mean, we’ve received just in the last two days a million and a half dollars in small donations from all over the country.
Trump says he 'couldn't care less' if Haley stays or drops out of race
Donald Trump, at a polling site in New Hampshire this afternoon, insisted Nikki Haley wasn’t a threat to his campaign and predicted a “big loss” for his rival in the state. He said:
I think she’s worked very hard, but I couldn’t care less, if she drops out that’s fine.
Trump said he wouldn’t comment when asked if he had spoken with Ron DeSantis since the Florida governor dropped out of the race on Sunday and endorsed him.
Updated
A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected Donald Trump’s request that it reconsider his appeal against a gag order imposed against him in the criminal case over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The move paves the way for a potential final challenge to the US supreme court.
The decision by the US court of appeals to deny Trump an en banc rehearing – where the full bench of judges consider the matter – marks the latest setback for the former president after an earlier three-judge panel also rejected his appeal.
For months, Trump has been attempting to free himself from a limited protective order entered by the US district judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the criminal case in Washington. The order prohibits him from making inflammatory statements that could intimidate trial witnesses or poison the jury pool.
The gag order came after special counsel prosecutors complained that Trump’s brazen public statements attacking them, court staff and potential trial witnesses could chill witness testimony and impede the fair administration of justice.
Linda Gallant of Derry doesn’t typically vote in the Republican primary. But the undeclared voter pulled a Republican ballot today. She said:
I’ll vote for anyone that has a chance to beat Trump.
Her support for Haley is mostly about denying Trump the nomination, but she said she could be persuaded to support her in a general election against Joe Biden, whom she voted for in 2020.
She’s young, she’s fresh. I think she brings a different energy.
Trump “brings chaos wherever he goes, like she says. He’s not a nice person. He’s not an admirable person. She is and so is Joe Biden, but anybody other than Trump.”
Congressman Byron Donalds, a Trump supporter, dropped by the polling place in Derry to thank campaign volunteers for their support. He posed for photos and thanked supporters who said they can’t wait for him to run for president one day.
Donalds has called on Haley to drop out of the race if she loses to Trump in New Hampshire on Tuesday.
“Nikki Haley’s got to show she can win a state. And this is the only one in my view that she’s got a shot in,” he told yours truly. “This is the end of the line for her.”
Donalds also insisted that Trump was “on it” mentally, after Haley questioned his mental acuity. Trump appeared to confuse her for Nancy Pelosi during a recent speech. Afterward, she added a segment of her stump speech raising the issue of Trump’s age and fitness for office.
Donalds said he was with Trump on Monday night and found him unchanged mentally or physically.
“I know President Trump spent time with him, like saw him yesterday, saw him last night. It’s not even the same situation, not even the same ballpark,” he told me.
Updated
Jessica Bastien, an undeclared voter in Derry, showed up to cast her ballot for Donald Trump wearing a top with the former president’s mugshot and the words: “NOT GUILTY”.
Bastien is undaunted by the four criminal charges and 91 felony counts he’s facing as he marches toward the Republican nomination. In her view, each count is baseless and she is hopeful he will ultimately be acquitted.
“I support his love for the country. His policies. His truthfulness and always sticking by what he says and protecting the US citizens first,” she said.
Asked what would happen if Trump loses, she said Biden was too weak to win and wouldn’t contemplate any other outcome. In the unlikely event Trump is dethroned in the primary, she is not sure what she would do in November.
“I think both parties are corrupted and have their ways of lying to us,” she said, adding that Trump’s movement doesn’t need the support of anti-Trump Republicans to win.
“I’m not really worried about that,” she said. “I don’t think we lost anything. I think we lost the people that we should have lost a long time ago.”
Voters arrived at a steady pace to cast their ballots in Derry, home to the largest polling place in the country. In a sign of the town’s importance to Haley’s hopes of a David v Goliath-sized upset on Tuesday night, the candidate dropped by to thank volunteers.
Steve Pearson, who represents Derry in the state legislature, was holding the lone Haley sign when I spoke to him outside of Pinkerton Academy high school. A raucous group of Trump campaign volunteers lined the sidewalk with signs next to a scattered group holding signs for Democratic candidates Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson. On the opposite side, a handful of people urged voters to “write in” Joe Biden’s name.
Just after midday, Jim MacEachern, a Republican who serves on the town council, said 3,700 people had already cast their ballots. Roughly 700 people chose a Democratic ballot while 3,000 took a Republican one.
If the pace keeps, and the weather keeps cooperating, he predicted the polling booth would see as many as 12,000 people by the end of the day.
“For a primary, that’s pretty damn good,” MacEachern said. The secretary of state had predicted record-breaking turnout among Republicans, and Derry’s strong participation is a sign New Hampshire might be on track to do that.
“A high turnout will bode well for her,” Pearson told me. “Because the diehard Trump Trump folks are coming out either way. It’s the independents, it’s the Republicans who are looking to find a candidate that they think is electable” who will make the difference.
“For too long we’ve treated the primary as the prize when the prize is the White House,” he said. “You needed a candidate who is electable at a national scale.”
Trump and Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene made an appearance at a polling place in Londonderry, New Hampshire, as voting is under way in the state’s primary.
Greene helped stomp for Trump, declaring on social media that the primary was “over” and that “Donald Trump is our nominee”.
When asked if she had a final message for New Hampshire voters, Greene said, in part: “I think the big message is that this is a referendum on the Republican party and it’s been coming. Republican voters…are sick and tired of uni-party Republicans, the neo-con establishment wing of the party.”
My message from Londonderry, New Hampshire!
— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) January 23, 2024
Tonight, Republican voters are going to send a LOUD and CLEAR message:
Donald Trump is our nominee and the primary is OVER! pic.twitter.com/6M6r7gsl7R
Updated
Andres Hulfachor, 21, a student in Nashua, New Hampshire, voted for Donald Trump. He said:
He can bring a better America. I wasn’t too happy with what Joe Biden did. I feel like honestly this country has gotten a little bit soft, and he can bring back that hard working culture. There’s a lot of people that have that victim mindset now since Joe Biden has been president.
Donald Trump can give out that winning mindset that we need to be a country that other countries look at and don’t really laugh at. On foreign relations, Joe Biden didn’t do a good job at all. Donald Trump got a lot of respect from other countries. That’s very important considering what’s going on right now around the world.
Hulfachor would also be fine with Nikki Haley as the nominee:
I don’t think she’s a bad candidate at all. If she ends up becoming president, I wouldn’t be disappointed at all. She’s a great lady, speaks well, has a lot of good ideas. I know my parents are fans of Nikki Haley too but I have Trump a touch in front of her. But like I said, if she wins, I won’t be too disappointed.
Law student AhLana Ames did not vote for a person, but for a word: “ceasefire”.
She used her Democratic ballot to take part in a campaign to write in the term to protest the Biden administration’ support of Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
“I’m against war in general. I don’t think what’s going on in Israel is particularly just,” the 23-year-old said.
I’m not particularly pleased with how Joe Biden is handling it, but wanted to vote Democratic.
The president has been under increasing pressure from the left for his administration’s defense of Israel, which staged a bloody invasion of Gaza following Hamas’s 7 October terrorist attack and mass kidnapping. An estimated 25,000 Palestinians have died in the incursion, but the Biden administration has generally refrained from openly criticizing Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, and allowed Israel to buy US weapons, leading some progressives to say they will not vote for Biden again.
Ames plans to soon move to Pennsylvania, a swing state Biden will likely need to win to get a second term in office. While she may look into supporting a third party candidate, she concedes that would likely be pointless, and she will probably end up voting for Biden again. She added:
I just know I’ll never vote for a Republican candidate.
Martin Janoschek, 57, is a Republican-leaning independent who did not want to vote for Donald Trump, and thus voted for Nikki Haley.
“I know she’s a longshot,” said Janoschek, who is unemployed.
I think she’s a pretty common-sensical person, from what I heard.
But if it comes down to Trump or Joe Biden in the November general election, as polls indicate it most likely will, Janoschek will probably vote for the former president over the current one, even though he doesn’t like his style.
“He’s a little bit bombastic,” he said.
“I’m a die hard Republican, and I voted for president Trump,” declared 73-year-old Mark Gonyer as he left the polling station in downtown Concord.
I don’t like some of the things he did, but out of all the candidates, he’s the best one.
There are, of course, far fewer candidates in the race than there were just a few months ago. Florida governor Ron DeSantis dropped out two days ago, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie quit before the Iowa caucuses and Vivek Ramaswamy exited after performing poorly in the Hawkeye state.
The one candidate left who could beat Trump in New Hampshire today – despite his big lead in recent polls – is former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, but Gonyer wasn’t interested.
“She’s got some good points,” he conceded, but said, based on his experience with female politicians nationwide and in New Hampshire, he didn’t think Haley was up to the task.
“I would give her a shot but look at Hillary Clinton, look at our vice-president we had now,” said Gonyer, who delivers auto parts and rebuilds old tractors. “She hasn’t done anything.”
There wasn’t much of a wait to vote at the old armory-turned-community center just steps from the New Hampshire statehouse that was one of the polling places for downtown Concord.
Voters got in and out quickly, passing supporters of Democrat Marianne Williamson, Republican Donald Trump, and the write-in campaign for Joe Biden on today’s ballot.
Cinde Warmington, the lone Democrat on New Hampshire’s executive council and a candidate for governor, was there to support the write-in effort for Biden. Holding a sign reading “Write-in Joe Biden”, Warmington said:
It is so important that he comes out of here in New Hampshire, with the country knowing that we are 100% behind our president. We need to re-elect him, keep Donald Trump out of the White House and to protect our fundamental freedom, like access to reproductive healthcare, which is under assault in the state as well as states across the country.
New Hampshire typically holds the first primary in the nation, but will now vote later after the Democratic National Committee (DNC) changed the schedule, and Biden has not endorsed the write-in campaign. Beyond being a show of support for him, Warmington said it was a way to remind Democratic leadership of the Granite state’s importance. Warmington said:
We were first and we are still first, and regardless of what the DNC does, we will always be the first-in-the-nation primary.
The DNC rule change means Biden is not appearing on the Democratic ballot, though Williamson and Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips are. Nonetheless, reports emerged yesterday that New Hampshire voters were receiving robocalls in which a voice that sounded like the president told them not to vote today, prompting the Biden-Harris campaign to call for an investigation.
It is “absolutely disgraceful that anyone would try to suppress the vote”, Armington said.
I hope that they find out who it is and prosecute them to the full extent of the law.
Updated
Polls show Donald Trump well ahead in New Hampshire. Even if Nikki Haley pulls off an upset here, there’s a sense that the result would only prolong an inevitable Trump-Biden rematch.
There were no debates in the run-up to the primary. After Iowa, Haley refused to debate unless Trump was on stage. Two scheduled debates were dropped. If yard signs are a traditional measure of enthusiasm for a candidate about to break through, the conspicuous lack of them is telling.
In their absence, many voters here have complained that the battle for their vote is mostly playing out in ads. Tens of millions of dollars have been spent flooding the airwaves and filling their mailboxes. Some voters said they receive up to 10 pieces of campaign literature in the mailbox each day.
It’s enough to make any voter say good riddance.
Even Haley admitted as much in her primary eve remarks: “You’re excited because you won’t have to watch any more commercials. You won’t have to see the mail and the text messages will stop.”
Updated
New Hampshire once again is at the center of the political universe, hosting a fiercely guarded “first-in-the-nation” primary. But if you were here, as we are, something feels off in the Granite state.
It’s not just the warmer-than-usual weather.
Only one party is holding a seriously contested primary – not completely out of the ordinary when an incumbent is running, but the national Democrats have effectively shived New Hampshire. The move infuriated local Democrats, who chose to move ahead with a Biden-free ballot knowing that, at least on their side of the aisle, the primary’s glory days are in the past.
The Republican contest has at times felt as sleepy – even though Donald Trump is facing his first ever serious one-on-one challenge from his party.
New Hampshire voters, famously free-thinking and proud of their reputation for picking winners, haven’t had much of the excitement they’re used to. Only Haley has done the statewide blitz, shaking hands and answering interrogatories at diners, breweries and even a hockey game.
But the barn-storming came too late, veterans of New Hampshire politics told me. They faulted her for not opening herself up more frequently to voters. She didn’t hold town hall style events that voters are accustomed to, a hallmark of past successful campaigns in the state and a way for voters to test a candidate’s mettle.
Trump seems to be riding on the loyalty he inspires with the GOP base, dipping into the state between courtroom appearances and only for rallies at night.
Updated
In Nashua, New Hampshire, Vincent Ranucci, 78, a retired lawyer wearing a Boston Red Sox baseball cap, is an independent voter and wrote in Biden’s name. He explained: “He’s a good president. He’s got a good head on his shoulders and wants to do the right thing. No personality quirks.
I’ve always liked him. He’s not perfect like anybody else. I wish the border would be secured better than it is, and they’re going to have to fix that. However, unfortunately, with our Congress and our parties, no matter what you want to do, you’ve got to get it through them and they fuss and they try to tie different things together that shouldn’t be. They should take care of the border issue and do Ukraine separately. But that’s what Joe’s up against.
Ranucci, who has lived in New Hampshire since 1989, was untroubled by having to write Biden’s name by hand on the ballot paper.
That’s fine. I don’t care much about primaries or who’s first and all that other stuff? It’s all politics, it’s all money. New Hampshire makes a lot of money on this, I’m sure. Good for advertising New Hampshire so good for them. I don’t care where we’re first or second or whatever just as long as we have the system and we use it.
Biden and Harris to hold abortion rights rally in Virginia
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will join forces at a rally in Virginia today as they campaign for abortion rights, a likely top issue for Democrats in this year’s election.
Biden and Harris will be joined by their spouses, first lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff, the first time the four of them have appeared together since the 2024 campaign began.
At the rally, which comes a day after the 51st anniversary of the Roe v Wade ruling, Biden will address what he will describe as the “devastating” impacts of the supreme court’s overturning of the decision in June 2022. Afterward, Biden and Harris are expected to meet with healthcare providers and leaders of reproductive rights groups.
On Monday, Harris kicked off her much-vaunted abortion rights nationwide tour in the battleground state of Wisconsin, which the president won in the 2020 presidential election by just over 20,000 votes. Wisconsin is a notable starting point for Harris’s reproductive freedoms tour. Last year, abortion rights propelled a Democratic victory in a critical election for the state supreme court.
Roe v Wade, the supreme court decision that enshrined the federal right to abortion, was overturned in June 2022 after the then president Donald Trump nominated three conservative justices to the nation’s highest court.
The decision was a major blow to supporters of reproductive rights, but since the ruling seven states – including the conservative strongholds of Kentucky, Kansas and Montana – have held ballot referendums where voters chose to protect abortion rights. The issue also appeared to hurt Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections.
Trump loses gag order request in January 6 case
Donald Trump’s request for the DC circuit to reconsider his gag order in the federal January 6 case has been denied, my colleague Hugo Lowell reports:
Just in: US court of appeals for DC Circuit denies Trump’s request for a panel rehearing over his gag order in the federal Jan. 6 case — sets up option for Trump to appeal to SCOTUS pic.twitter.com/xeEYg0bkkq
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) January 23, 2024
Updated
Mary Riddell, 64, a retired teacher, wrote in Joe Biden’s name at the polls in Bicentennial elementary school in Nashua, New Hampshire. She said:
He’s a good, strong Democrat with democratic ideals. America’s already a fabulous country. We’re doing great the way it is. I believe in public education, believe in teaching history correctly, believe in having access to books, believe in sharing the wealth to everyone in our country, believe in welcoming immigrants and, I just believe in doing what’s right.
Riddell did not consider voting for Dean Phillips or Marianne Williamson. “They’re great people, they have good messages but we’ve got to rally behind Joe Biden and make sure that Trump doesn’t return for another four years because it was an angry, chaotic time in our country and we can’t go back to that.”
How did Riddell feel about having to write in Biden’s name rather than cast a traditional vote? “I’m pretty strong, I’m pretty brave, I can write a name in. If that’s what’s expected of us to preserve our democracy, then we can rise to the challenge and do that.”
Riddell said she understood the logic of moving New Hampshire down the primary electoral calendar. “I would like it to be more inclusive of different peoples, of different races, of different genders, of different ethnic groups, of different political persuasions. New Hampshire’s a great state, a lovely state, but not representative of the rest of the country.
Sometimes things have to change. We’ve gone through a lot of changes. The world’s going through changes. We can write in somebody and it’s time. It’s good that South Carolina is going to have a chance. Let other states that are just more ethnically diverse have a chance because that’s what our country is becoming and we welcome it.
Updated
In Nashua, New Hampshire, Patricia Hemenway, 55, a production planner, is a registered independent and voted for Nikki Haley in the Republican race. “Because I’m voting against Donald Trump,” she said simply.
Asked about her objections to Trump, Hemenway summed up:
Everything. Absolutely everything. I’m a military brat; my father served for 26 years. I will have to say the January 6 thing was absolutely revolting to me. I find him revolting. I find a lot of his followers scary.
If the presidential election is a Biden v Trump rematch, she would support the Democrat. “He’s a bit old but, if that’s the only alternative, I’m voting for the lesser of two evils at this point.”
There was a steady flow of voters at Bicentennial elementary school in Nashua, New Hampshire. At the snowy school entrance, a few people waved signs encouraging voters to write-in Joe Biden’s name in the Democratic primary; there were also a couple of Trump supporters holding his signs on the Republican side.
Voters lined up inside a school hall decorated with the national flags of various countries as election officials and police looked on. A grey T-shirt draped over a partition said: “NH proudly voting first since 1920.”
Emerging from the hall Rita Case, 78, a retired IT worker, admitted that she had wanted to vote for Ron DeSantis in the Republican primary. She said:
I like the things that DeSantis believes in and there would not be the chaos and division that might come with Bozo, whose mouth is his worst enemy.
But with the Florida governor having dropped out on Sunday, Case switched to Trump anyway. She explained:
He can keep people in their place and take care of the border and not let other countries walk all over us. The chaos and the ‘uh, well’ comes in second.
As for Joe Biden, she offered: “He’s done a few good things but he’s too weak. I don’t like a lot of the Democrat beliefs.”
Updated
The New Hampshire attorney general’s office said on Monday that it was investigating reports of a robocall mimicking the voice of Joe Biden and encouraging Democrats not to vote in Tuesday’s primary election.
New Hampshire attorney general, John Formella, said the recorded message, which was sent to multiple voters on Sunday, appeared to be an illegal attempt to disrupt and suppress voting.
Voters should “disregard the contents of this message entirely”, he added.
A recording of the call, released by NBC, begins with: “What a bunch of malarkey,”, using a term so characteristic of the 81-year-old president it has been widely used in merchandising and meme-making.
“You know the value of voting Democratic,” the voice said. “Our votes count. It’s important that you save your vote for the November election. We’ll need your help in electing Democrats up and down the ticket.
Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday. If you would like to be removed from future calls, please press two now.
Biden’s name will not be on the Democratic ballot on Tuesday, because New Hampshire went against an official reorganisation of the primary calendar which placed South Carolina first.
Dean Phillips, the Democratic congressman from Minnesota who is mounting a long shot primary campaign against Joe Biden, rocked up at the Windham high school polling location on Tuesday morning to shake the hands of some New Hampshire voters.
He was well received, even by a woman holding a ‘Trump 2024’ sign, and Phillips seemed unfazed when he saw a man holding a ‘Write-in Biden’ placard. After an internal Democratic party feud Biden’s name is not on the ballot in New Hampshire, but a campaign has started to write the president’s name anyway.
Inside, Phillips engaged with some volunteers from the Windham Lions, a charity organization which helps people in the community. The Lions are selling cookies – the molasses one is the bestseller so far – to raise money.
Phillips also stopped to chat with Theresa Arangio, who was on her way into the high school gym to vote. When she came out, she said she had been wavering between writing in Biden and voting for Phillips, but the latter had won her over.
“His ads made a lot of sense when he was talking about Biden and Trump, and there’s bad sides to both of them,” Arangio, 81, said.
And then just seeing him, he was just so personable. Not that Biden isn’t – he is a very personable, very compassionate person. But yeah, maybe that was it, that just seeing Phillips here, him making the effort to come and meet people.
Arangio added:
President Biden, I really think he’s done a great job. I really like him. But, you know, the age is a factor. And with Trump, I’m just afraid. I don’t want four more years of him, I just don’t for our country.
Three failed Republican candidates get behind Trump in New Hampshire
Vivek Ramaswamy urged the crowd to end the primary right here. Doug Burgum told them to think of safety and prosperity. Tim Scott posed a series of questions that culminated with: “How many y’all want me to stop talking so you can hear from your next president, Donald J Trump?”
As the three failed US presidential candidates turned endorsers stood alongside Donald Trump on stage in Laconia, New Hampshire, on Monday, the crowd chanted “Four more years!” and the message to Republicans was clear: join us now or be cast into the political wilderness.
The show of unity exemplified the breakneck speed with which elected officials, rightwing media and mega-donors are consolidating around Trump as their seemingly inevitable nominee in 2024. Trump told the rally:
Now is the time for the Republican party to come together. We have to unify … We’re all in the same team, 100% focused on [Joe] Biden and beating him in November.
Buoyed by a record win in last week’s Iowa caucuses and the exit of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, Trump heads into Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary election with only one opponent standing in his way: Nikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the UN. If the former president wins convincingly, as opinion polls suggest, Haley will face renewed pressure to end the anti-Trump resistance.
It is a striking contrast from the 2016 primary season, when multiple candidates continued to battle Trump into May. It is also very different mood music from a year ago when, in the wake of disappointing midterm elections, there were rumblings of discontent in the Republican party and a desire to turn the page.
Read the full story: Time to back Trump: Republican donors accept the inevitable
Updated
Diana Jeans voted for Nikki Haley this morning in Windham, a small town less than 10 miles from the New Hampshire-Massachusetts border.
“She is down to earth. She’s compassionate, and she’s for the American people. Truly. It’s not about Nikki, it’s about the American people,” Jeans said.
She said Donald Trump is the opposite.
I think that he has a very large ego, and he is a little bit of a narcissist. And people like that have themselves as their best interest, more than the people. And ‘Make America Great Again’ didn’t happen the first time. Why would it happen now?
If Trump does end up being the Republican nominee, Jeans said she wasn’t sure if she would vote for him, although she said she would “definitely not” cast her vote for Biden.
Windham high school in Windham, New Hampshire, is a flurry of activity right now, with warmly dressed voters scurrying from their cars to the warmth of the voting booths inside.
Tina Lorenz, who is wearing a white puffer jacket with a series of red accessories – “I’m being patriotic,” she said – has been a Donald Trump supporter since 2016.
“He is representing the American people. He is not out for himself. He’s not out for political gain. He’s not out for financial reasons. He doesn’t need money, he doesn’t need fame and fortune. He already has all of that,” Lorenz, 63, said.
He is out there for the average person. And that’s what’s happening, we’ve become so polarized, that there’s nobody out there for just regular people.
Immigration is a big issue for Lorenz, a retired nurse.
I’m all for people coming into this country legally and being helped. But just to have people come in and have people, regular American people, having to pay for more and more and more when they’re having trouble just paying for themselves isn’t right.
Updated
Asked if she would drop out should Donald Trump beat her by double digits in New Hampshire, Nikki Haley said that she has “never done what he tells me to do”. She added:
I’m running against Donald Trump. And I’m not going to talk about an obituary.
A memo by Haley’s campaign manager earlier today appeared to be a direct response to a Trump campaign memo on Sunday that suggested tonight’s results could prompt her to exit the race.
The Trump campaign memo, written by the former president’s advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, argued that Haley faces only two options if she loses in New Hampshire: to drop out and back Trump, or to be prepared to be “absolutely DEMOLISHED and EMBARASSED in her [] home state of South Carolina”.
'See y'all in South Carolina': Haley campaign says she's 'not going anywhere'
Nikki Haley’s campaign has insisted she isn’t “going anywhere” in a memo on Tuesday that appeared to push back against suggestions that she could drop out of the Republican primary race if she loses in New Hampshire tonight.
The memo by Haley’s campaign manager, Betsy Ankney, accuses the “political class and the media” of wanting to “throw up their hands” and to give Donald Trump a “coronation”. “That isn’t how this works,” she writes.
We’ve heard multiple members of the press say New Hampshire is ‘the best it’s going to get’ for Nikki due to Independents and unaffiliated voters being able to vote in the Republican primary. The reality is that the path through Super Tuesday includes more states than not that have this dynamic.
She notes that South Carolina has no party registration, meaning that anyone can vote in the Republican primary if they have not already voted in the Democrat primary on 3 February.
Eleven of the 16 Super Tuesday states have “open or semi-open primaries”, she says, adding that after Super Tuesday, “we will have a very good picture of where this race stands … Until then, everyone should take a deep breath.”
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As Nikki Haley made her closing pitch in Salem last night, she was interrupted by a heckler.
“Will you marry me?” a young man shouted. Haley laughed, and without missing a beat pointed at him: Will you vote for me?”
He said no, he was voting for Trump.
“Get outta here,” she said as the crowd booed and security moved to escort him out.
Polls open in New Hampshire as Trump looks to drive Haley out of the race
Donald Trump and Nikki Haley are facing off in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary as voters head to the polls to select a Republican nominee to take on Joe Biden in November.
With polls open, New Hampshire voters are set to determine the course of the GOP primary: will they stand by Trump, delivering him a decisive sweep of the first contests, or will enough of them choose to turn the page, putting Haley in striking distance of her former boss or possibly even handing her an upset outright.
Trump leads in New Hampshire by double-digit margins but is considered more vulnerable in the state, where independent voters make up nearly 40% of the electorate and can choose to vote in either party’s primary. The former president is aiming to secure a commanding victory in New Hampshire, the state that propelled him to the nomination in 2016 and where he continues to hold strong sway among the Republican base.
A large enough win would effectively extinguish Haley’s presidential ambitions, eight days after the former president’s record-setting victory in the Iowa. Haley has staked her candidacy on a strong showing in New Hampshire, investing time and resources into persuading the state’s famously free-thinking electorate that she is the candidate best positioned to beat Joe Biden in November. In the first official results, all six registered voters of Dixville Notch cast their ballots for Haley in the tiny township’s midnight primary.
Democrats will also hold a primary on Tuesday, but Joe Biden’s name won’t be on the ballot. Though turnout is expected to be low, Democrats will have the choice between voting for Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota, and Marianne Williamson, an author and self-help guru who ran for president in 2020. Meanwhile, some of the president’s supporters in the state have urged Democrats to write in Biden’s name on their ballots.
In the final hours before polls opened, Nikki Haley held a rally with supporters at a swanky new hotel in Salem, a suburb in New Hampshire.
“We’ve got a lot on the line here,” Haley told the crowd, which packed a chandeliered ballroom, and spilled into the lobby. Making her closing pitch, she told supporters:
If you go to the polls tomorrow – and take five people with you – and you commit to getting us back on track, I will spend every single day proving to you that you made a good decision.
In her remarks, Haley attempted to showcase the breadth of her appeal, pushing back on Donald Trump’s accusations that she’s relying on moderates and liberals to boost her campaign.
She pointed into the crowd at Don Bolduc, a combat veteran who backed Haley after losing a Trump-endorsed bid for Senate in 2022 during which he claimed the 2020 election had been stolen. He later tried to reverse those claims in the general election, but it was seen as a factor in his loss to Democratic senator, Maggie Hassan.
“He’s as conservative as they get,” Haley beamed. And then she pointed to the state’s Republican governor, Chris Sununu, who has escorted her across the state for the last week. He’s a “moderate”, she noted. Left unsaid was that he is one of Trump’s few prominent Republican critics.
Introducing Haley in Salem, Sununu reminded the crowd that since Trump was elected in 2016, Republicans had lost the House, Senate and the White House. He said New Hampshire Republicans had fared poorly too, with several of Trump’s allies in the state losing their elections in the 2022 midterms.
“Hey Donald Trump, where the F is the ‘red wave,’” he said. “Give me a break.”
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Why Biden's name isn't on the New Hampshire primary ballot
While Donald Trump and Nikki Haley might draw focus, a shadow presidential primary is taking place in New Hampshire, where Joe Biden could stumble at the first hurdle of his bid to run for president again in 2024 following an internal Democratic party feud.
As a consequence of the party scrap, Biden’s name will not even appear on the ballot in the Granite state on Tuesday. While the president remains the favorite to win his party’s overall nomination, his absence here has opened a window for Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota, and Marianne Williamson, an author and self-help guru who ran for president in 2020, to mount longshot presidential bids.
The unusual situation stems from the Democratic National Committee’s decision to ditch decades of tradition this year in designating South Carolina, a much more racially diverse state, to host the first presidential primary. The decision outraged New Hampshire Democrats, who insisted they would not go along with the national party’s plan to rob them of their “first-in-the-nation” status. As a result, the New Hampshire Democratic party decided to hold its primary the same day as the Republican primary, in defiance of the DNC’s decision.
The DNC has criticized the New Hampshire primary as a sham, calling on the state party to “educate the public” that the contest “is a non-binding presidential preference event and is meaningless”. The New Hampshire attorney general, Republican John Formella, in turn sent a cease-and-desist letter to the DNC to compel the organization to stop making “false, deceptive and misleading” claims about the primary.
Biden might be absent from the state, but a movement has emerged encouraging people to write his name on voting slips, and in a sign that the Biden campaign sees the potential for embarrassment, a series of high-profile Biden supporters have been dispatched to New Hampshire in recent weeks.
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Voters are queueing up at polling places across New Hampshire this morning for the first-in-the nation primary.
Most polling sites in the state will close at 7pm ET, with results beginning to come shortly after that, but some will be open until 8pm.
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Dean Phillips isn't backing down from challenging Biden
Dean Phillips, the long-shot Democratic challenger to Joe Biden, has refused to back down from attacking the president as he vowed to stay in the race “as long as it takes to get a head-to-head matchup with Donald Trump”.
The Minnesota Democrat, in an interview with CNN this morning, criticized his party for being “completely delusional”, adding that he has “a conviction that Joe Biden is going to lose”.
“I’m trying to shake it up,” Phillips said.
We need to. Donald Trump is going to win. Joe Biden is a fine man, but he’s going to lose.
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Donald Trump was joined by three of his former GOP primary rivals last night at his final rally before the New Hampshire primary.
Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott and Doug Burgum joined Trump onstage in Laconia, New Hampshire, where they briefly addressed the crowd to reiterate their support for the former president.
“That’s a group of great people,” Trump said. “You’ll be seeing a lot of them.”
The rally was interrupted several times by fossil fuel protesters, who shouted out “blood on his hands” and “oil sellout” before being kicked off the resort where the event was held.
Trump widens lead over Haley in New Hampshire poll
A tracking poll released this morning shows Donald Trump has widened his lead over Nikki Haley in recent days, following the withdrawal of Ron DeSantis from the GOP race.
The poll by NBC News, the Boston Globe and Suffolk University shows Trump at 60% among likely Republican primary voters, compared with Haley at 38%.
The results also show that most of likely New Hampshire voters have already made up their minds about who they’re voting for today. More than 89% said they are either “not at all likely” or “not very likely” to change their minds.
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Here are some early risers in New Hampshire, already up and queueing to cast their votes today.
The state Democratic party in New Hampshire is plowing ahead with a primary, even though the national party has said it will not honor the results. There is a sense that politicians, journalists and voters could be witnessing the end of an era.
“New Hampshire is a very white area with an average age that’s a bit on the older side, so I do understand that it’s maybe not the best group of voters to represent the entire country,” said Jamie Setzler, 20, from New Boston, New Hampshire.
“But from a selfish standpoint it is disappointing. I used to be able to look forward, every four years, to something interesting.”
This graphic shows how the demographics in New Hampshire compares to the rest of the US.
The change to the calendar came after Joe Biden, who came fifth in the 2020 New Hampshire Democratic primary before reviving his campaign with a win in South Carolina, wrote to the DNC in 2022.
“For decades, Black voters in particular have been the backbone of the Democratic party but have been pushed to the back of the early primary process,” Biden wrote.
“We rely on these voters in elections but have not recognized their importance in our nominating calendar. It is time to stop taking these voters for granted, and time to give them a louder and earlier voice in the process.”
Read more from Adam Gabbatt in Manchester, New Hampshire here: ‘We’ve dug our heels in’ – is this the end of New Hampshire’s election clout?
One of the big questions today is if a big win for Donald Trump will effectively end the race to be the Republican nominee. Over at CNN Eric Bradner and Gregory Krieg write:
If Trump wins, he would make history: In modern presidential campaign history – 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 in doing so, he would make it much tougher for Haley to convince donors to pour money into her campaign and voters to stick with her for the month until the South Carolina primary. She’ll miss her only shot at another win before then because Haley filed to run in Nevada’s state-run primary, instead of competing in the state GOP-run caucuses. Delegates are awarded through the Nevada caucuses.
Some in the party are already eager to see the nominating race reach its end eight days after it started.
Biden still expected to win Democratic primary despite not being on ballot
Even without a formal campaign presence in New Hampshire, and without Biden’s name on the ballot paper, the US president is still expected to receive the most votes in the Democratic primary by a wide margin.
An Emerson College/WHDH poll conducted last week showed Biden winning the support of 61% of likely Democratic primary voters, compared to 16% for Phillips and 5% for Williamson.
But a disappointing performance could point to decreased enthusiasm among the Democratic base, which would be a worrisome sign for Biden heading into the general election. Polls already show Biden running neck and neck with Donald Trump, who is widely expected to win the Republican presidential nomination.
In an indication of Biden’s potential vulnerabilities, some of the president’s prominent allies, including congressman Ro Khanna of California, have spent time campaigning on his behalf in New Hampshire. Speaking at a house party in support of the write-in campaign on Saturday, Khanna predicted a “decisive win” for Biden in New Hampshire.
“That’s going to propel him to have a big win in November,” Khanna said. “At the end of the day, I am a believer that Americans love this country and love our democracy.”
Some voters, however, outraged over the war in Gaza, are expected to write in “ceasefire” to the ballot paper today to criticize US support for Israel’s military.
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We are a ways out from the 5 November election itself, but after today’s primary in New Hampshire the election events start coming thick and fast until we reach Super Tuesday on 5 March. If you need it, here is a handy timeline of how the process unfolds throughout the year.
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Former US secretary of labor Robert Reich has written for the Guardian today, and is scathing about what he says is the way that the media are making a big deal of Trump’s performance in the campaign so far:
Headline after headline offers the same breathless, spellbound story: “Trump is dominating.” “Disciplined.” “Ruthless.” “Hugely effective.” “Remarkable.”
Earth to the mainstream media: this is dangerous nonsense.
Why should Trump’s dominance be surprising? He’s dominated the Republican party since 2016. He dominates by ridiculing opponents, blasting anyone who stands in his way, bullying, browbeating, and bellowing. The media eats it up. He’s outrageous and entertaining.
Trump’s success in last week’s Iowa caucuses wasn’t a “stunning show of strength”. It was a display of remarkable weakness. He got just 56,260 votes. There are 2,083,979 registered voters in Iowa. Fewer than 3% of Iowans voted for him.
The danger in the mainstream media’s awestruck coverage of Trump right now – making a big deal out of his winning the Iowa caucuses, dominating the polls, pushing out all rivals except Haley, and almost surely winning today’s New Hampshire primary – is that it creates a false impression that Trump is unstoppable, all the way through the general election.
But no one should confuse Trump’s performance in the Republican primaries for success in the presidential election.
Read more of this opinion piece here: Robert Reich – Yes, Trump is dominating the primaries. That doesn’t mean he’ll beat Biden
Mike Allen at Axios has this on why some Biden supporters are, perhaps unexpectedly, hoping for a big Donald Trump win in New Hampshire today that knocks Nikki Haley out of the race. He writes:
Biden’s backers see New Hampshire as a win-win: either Trump wins huge and a 286-day general election campaign begins tomorrow or Trump gets caught in a drawn-out primary until at least South Carolina’s contest on 24 February.
The president’s campaign has internal data indicating that most of the undecided voters Biden is targeting don’t think Trump will be the Republican nominee. They haven’t tuned in to an election that’s more than nine months away.
That leads Biden’s team to believe the dynamics of the campaign will change significantly once those voters realize it really will be a Biden-Trump matchup in November.
Allen does point out one trend in recent polling data though that could prove a worry to the president:
A USA Today/Suffolk university poll found 44% of Republican primary voters were “very enthusiastic” about Trump. Only 18% of Democratic primary voters said the same about Biden.
Most places in New Hampshire – if they aren’t called Dixville Notch – will open their polls at 7am EST (noon GMT), although a few places will open an hour earlier than that. Most polls will close at 7pm EST (midnight GMT), and the results in the Republican primary will probably get called about an hour after that.
There will be 24 names on the Republican ballot paper, which obviously has to be printed well ahead of the election, and so doesn’t take into account the fact that a lot of the candidates have already pulled out of the campaign.
The Democrats have 21 names to choose from on their ballots, but not Joe Biden. As my colleague Adam Gabbatt explained:
The unusual situation stems from the Democratic national committee’s decision to ditch decades of tradition this year in choosing South Carolina, a much more racially diverse state, to host the first presidential primary. When New Hampshire said it would host its primary first anyway – South Carolina will vote next week – the Democratic National Committee essentially said it would ignore the state’s results.
This may, however, end up delaying the results of the vote in New Hampshire. Some Biden supporters have been encouraging voters to write in his name on the ballot, which will complicate the counting.
The move hasn’t been universally popular. CBS News reports that yesterday New Hampshire Democratic Sen Maggie Hassan told reporters:
The DNC made a terrible decision not to have New Hampshire go first. We care about our country in New Hampshire. We care about democracy in New Hampshire. And we know what the stakes are here. We know Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee. And we know the threat that that poses to our democracy.
New Hampshire is so wedded to being the first primary in an election campaign that in 1975 the state passed a law requiring its primary date to be set not by the parties themselves, but by the secretary of state. The law also requires the vote to take place seven days or more ahead of any other.
Haley: this vote is 'not a coronation' for Trump
Campaigning last night, Nikki Haley insisted that today’s vote was “not a coronation” for Donald Trump as the Republican nominee.
Interviewed by Leland Vittert, Haley said viewing her performance in New Hampshire as make or break for her campaign had never been fair. She told him:
It has never been fair. I said I needed to be strong in Iowa. We started at 2%. We ended at 20%. I need to be stronger in New Hampshire. I think we’ll do that tomorrow. And then I need to be stronger than that in South Carolina.
The one thing we have to remember is Donald Trump only won with one and a half percent of the vote in Iowa, 56,000 people voted for him out of a state of three million people. That is not representative of the country.
And you’ve got the political class saying, ‘Oh, it’s got to be him. No. This is not a coronation. This is an election.
You go state by state. You are trying to get representation of real normal people. And that is what we are focused on. We’re going to take it one step at a time.
The South Carolina primary, in Haley’s home state, is scheduled for 24 February.
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Two New Hampshire polls released in the lasat couple of days didn’t carry as much encouragement for Nikki Haley as she might have hoped, although with Florida governor Ron DeSantis ending his presidential campaign at the last minute, there may be some wriggle room in the numbers.
On Sunday NBC News, the Boston Globe and Suffolk University put Donald Trump 19 points clear of Haley, at 55% to 36% support. On Monday, the Washington Post and Monmouth University put Trump at 52% support in New Hampshire, to 34% for Haley.
If you fancy something audio to set the scene, then today’s episode of Today in Focus is about the New Hampshire primary and the 2024 US election race.
The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith, speaks to Michael Safi, and explains how New Hampshire could deliver a win that helps Donald Trump seal up the votes he needs for the nomination before his numerous court appearances can seriously dent his candidacy.
You can listen to it here: Today in Focus – New Hampshire primary: the last chance to stop Trump?
Nikki Haley wins all six votes in small New Hampshire town
Voting has actually begun in New Hampshire, because Dixville Notch traditionally opens its polls at midnight and declares the result as quickly as possible afterwards. It is a tiny electorate – just six people voted. They all went for Nikki Haley.
The New York Times notes that “the event is as much a press spectacle as it is a serious exercise in democracy”, adding that “there were more than ten journalists for every voter, including representatives from major TV networks, newspapers, wire services and foreign press from over a dozen countries.”
78-year-old Tom Tillotson told the New York Times “The real message here is ‘get off your butts, get out there and vote.’ Everybody. Republicans and Democrats.”
And no election is complete without pictures of dogs taking part in the democratic process, and thankfully Dixville Notch delivered on that score already.
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Nikki Haley chases an upset in bitter New Hampshire face-off with Trump
Lauren Gambino is in Manchester, New Hampshire for the Guardian
Republicans are predicting record turnout – and good weather, seen as a possible boon to Nikki Haley who is relying more heavily on voters who don’t typically participate in the party’s primary.
The stakes could not be higher for Haley. She is barnstorming the state, from the “suburbs to the seacoast”, trying to persuade anti-Trump independents and open-minded conservatives to back her long-shot bid.
Donald Trump by contrast has been in and out of the state, holding raucous evening rallies between appearances in court. New Hampshire propelled Trump to the Republican nomination in 2016 after he came in second in the Iowa caucuses. This year, Trump hopes to notch a victory large enough to effectively extinguish Haley’s campaign.
For much of her nearly year-long campaign, Haley carefully avoided Trump, instead drawing implicit contrasts with calls for a “new generation” of leaders in Washington and a proposal to instate cognitive tests for older politicians. But in the final days before New Hampshire’s primary, she went after him more aggressively, questioning his mental fitness and accusing him of cozying up to dictators and autocrats.
Trump responded with insults and misrepresentations while accusing her campaign of relying on the support of “globalists” and liberals to win. In an ugly series of social media posts, he revived the birtherism conspiracy that she was ineligible to be president because her parents were not US citizens when she was born. This is false; Haley, the South Carolina-born daughter of immigrants from India, is eligible. Trump also appeared to mock her Indian ancestry by referring to – and mispelling – her given name, Nimarata. Haley has always gone by her middle name, Nikki.
Haley and her allies insist she has a path forward even if she doesn’t pull off an upset. Improving on her third-place finish in Iowa would be enough. But if she can’t win in New Hampshire, with an electorate seen as far more friendly to her brand of Republicanism, analysts said it will be hard to make the pitch to voters – and donors – that she can win anywhere else.
Read more of Lauren Gambino’s report here: Nikki Haley chases an upset in bitter New Hampshire face-off with Trump
Welcome and opening summary …
Welcome to our live US politics coverage on a milestone day in the race for the 2024 US presidential election, with the opening day of the primary season. Here are the headlines …
New Hampshire will hold its first-in-the nation primary in what may be the last chance Republicans have to stop Donald Trump from running away with the nomination, as Nikki Haley chases an upset.
Just over a week after the former president’s record-setting victory in the Iowa caucuses, he is now locked in an increasingly bitter showdown with Haley, who has staked her candidacy on a strong showing in the more moderate New Hampshire.
Trump leads by double-digit margins but is considered more vulnerable in the state, where independent voters make up nearly 40% of the electorate and can choose to vote in either party’s primary.
A shadow presidential primary is also taking place. Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota, and Marianne Williamson, an author and self-help guru who ran for president in 2020, are mounting longshot presidential bids. Joe Biden’s name won’t feature on the ballot paper.
The primary comes with the background noise of intervention against Yemen’s Houthis in the Red Sea rumbling on. The US has carried out its eighth round of airstrikes. A Pentagon statement said the bombing was “proportionate and necessary”.
I am Martin Belam, and I will be with you for the next few hours. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
