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
