‘Clear Republican frontrunner’: Trump scores election win in New Hampshire

The primary further solidified Trump’s place as the clear Republican frontrunner.

Former President Donald Trump has won a commanding victory in the New Hampshire Republican primary, scoring an easy win over his only remaining rival for the GOP nomination, Nikki Haley.

AP called the race for Trump at 8pm Tuesday night, with the outlet tallying 54% of the popular vote for the ex-president with 83% of the ballots counted. Haley – a former South Carolina governor and the last Republican vying for the nomination against Trump – took 43% of the vote. A separate count by CNN noted that Trump had scored 12 delegates against Haley’s 9.

In a victory speech after the results were in, Trump thanked his supporters and hurled invective at both Haley and President Joe Biden, saying the Republican candidate “had a very bad night” and is “not going to win.”

”We’ve won almost every single poll in the last three months against crooked Joe Biden, almost, and she doesn’t win those polls,” he added, going on to say that Biden “can’t put two sentences together” or “find the stairs off the stage.”

Despite lackluster showings in both New Hampshire and Iowa – where she landed in third place behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis – Haley vowed to remain in the race, saying it was “far from over” with “dozens of states left to go.” In her own speech to voters, Haley took a more conciliatory approach, congratulating Trump for his win while saying “he earned it.”

The Democratic Party also held its New Hampshire primary on Tuesday night, with Biden scoring a landslide win over Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson. While the president’s name did not appear on ballots in the state due to a scheduling dispute between New Hampshire Democrats and the national party, he sailed to victory through a write-in campaign organized by supporters.

Biden described his win as a “historic demonstration of commitment to our democratic process,” and went on to issue a dire warning about the alleged dangers of another Trump presidency.

”It is now clear that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. And my message to the country is the stakes could not be higher,” he said. “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.”