New Hampshire primary 2024: Trump projected to win, Haley vows to fight on
Trump and Biden had strong showings in the first-in-the-nation primary.
Former President Donald Trump will win the 2024 New Hampshire GOP primary, ABC News projects. As of 10 p.m. Eastern, Trump was ahead by less than 10 percentage points. While that represents a slight overperformance of polling for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, even a close loss is a big hit to her prospects, as she had staked her campaign on a strong performance in the Granite State. Haley spoke shortly after the projection to emphasize that "this race is far from over," while Trump (and his allies) amped up calls for her to drop out.
ABC News has also projected that President Joe Biden will win the Granite State's Democratic primary. A comfortable write-in victory for him despite not even being on the ballot is a good sign for the incumbent.
Latest headlines:
Does electability matter to Republicans?
I wrote about this earlier, but the “electability” question usually plagues women who run for the presidency because of the perception that a woman can’t win the White House (and hasn’t yet!). But Haley uses the electability argument to support her candidacy over and over again, and is in her speech now, in New Hampshire.
—Meredith Conroy, 538 contributor
Hanover still very anti-Trump
The New York Times is reporting more than 95 percent of the vote in Hanover, where Dartmouth is located. As expected, voters there still really don't like Trump! Haley leads him there, 86 percent to 13 percent. That's actually a slight improvement for Trump over his 2016 mark, when he won just 11 percent of the vote there. And remember that in Iowa, the only county Haley won, Johnson County, was home to the University of Iowa. Haley is doing great in the college town primary, but coming up short elsewhere.
—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections
What about Grafton?
Readers of A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear will have a close eye on the small town of Grafton. But so far, Grafton has yet to report its votes. Trump is likely to do well, as he got 45 percent of the town's votes back in 2016.
—Dan Hopkins, 538 contributor
What do the early returns say about where Trump's doing especially well?
There are now enough towns where more than 95 percent of the expected vote is in, so we can start to look at the characteristics of the towns where Trump is doing especially well relative to his performance in 2016. The answer: towns that have lower fractions of college-educated voters, but also towns with higher per capita incomes. Farmington, New Hampshire — a town near along the New Hampshire-Maine border — is the town where Trump is overperforming the most so far given the town's demographics.
—Dan Hopkins, 538 contributor
Final thoughts: Trump still dominates, but weaknesses remain among GOP voters
Big picture, this was a good night for Trump, who gets another win under his belt, avoids the embarrassment of losing an early state, and gets to compete in much more favorable territory from now on. It's obvious he's going to be the Republican nominee for president. But I don't think we should lose sight of the fact that just under half of Republican primary voters in the first two states voted for someone other than Trump, even as his inevitability has become apparent. I do think that should be a cause for some concern among Republicans moving forward, given that the general election will likely be brutally close and even a small drop in Republican support for Trump could prove fatal. The longer Haley stays in, the more data we'll get on just how many GOP voters there are who are not entirely on board with Trump, especially as she steps up her direct attacks on him. There's been so much conversation about Biden's struggles within the Democratic coalition — which are real and worthy of attention — but Trump may face similar challenges as the nominee as well.
—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections