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:
How many Democratic write-ins are for Biden?
This is just one town, but in Belmont, Biden won about three-fourths of the write-in votes.
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
Lebanon goes for Haley, but not overwhelmingly
Lebanon, New Hampshire, is a town with many college graduates on the Connecticut River just south of Hanover. Haley has 62 percent of the vote their. However, Trump grew his vote share there, too — from 22 percent to in 2016 to 37 percent today.
— Dan Hopkins, 538 contributor
Haley probably running behind where she needs to be
The capital city of Concord has just about fully reported now, based on data from ABC News. With 95 percent of the expected vote reported, Haley leads there by 8 points, 54 percent to 46 percent. That sounds great for her, but this is probably short of where she needs to be. Concord is a solid Democratic-leaning place — Biden won it by about 32 points in 2020 — so the registered independents here might be more favorable to her. But in the 2016 GOP primary, Trump, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson combined for 41 percent in Concord, yet Trump has 46 percent right now. To have any chance, Haley probably needs places like this to be even more robust for her.
—Geoffrey Skelley, 538
New Hampshire independents boosted Haley, but they weren't enough for her
Coming into today, a big question was whether independents would turn out a high level and put Haley in a competitive position versus Trump. Based on the preliminary exit poll, the answer was yes — but not enough for Haley to win. Overall, 45 percent of voters identified as independent or something else, and they went for Haley by 24 points, 61 percent to 37 percent. However, self-identified Republicans made up 4 percent of the electorate and. broke for Trump by 39 points, 74 percent to 25 percent. Even with a little help from the 6 percent who identified as Democrats (went for Haley 84 percent to 6 percent), Haley couldn't catch Trump because of his overwhelming edge among Republicans.
Another aspect of the independent question is New Hampshire's electoral access rules, which permit those not registered with a party — "undeclared" voters — to vote in party primaries. That group, which includes many self-identified independents, did turn out in a big way, making up 47 percent of the electorate to registered Republicans' 50 percent (same-day registrants made up the rest). And Haley won among undeclared voters 66 percent to 32 percent. But Trump won among registered Republicans 74 percent to 24 percent. These numbers will change somewhat after further weighting based on the results, but the big takeaway is that independents put Haley in range, but Trump's dominance among Republicans preserved his edge.
—Geoffrey Skelley, 538