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.


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Biden outperforming his polls

As Dan mentioned earlier, the pre-election polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire didn’t seem to be missing Trump voters. But if Biden stays at 67 percent, as Nathaniel observed, it looks like polls of the Democratic primary in New Hampshire might have understated Biden’s support by quite a bit.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538


Biden’s pulling two-thirds of the vote so far

Edison Research, from which we get our election results, is separating out write-in votes for Biden in the Democratic primary. And with 17 percent of the expected vote reporting, Biden write-ins account for 67 percent of the vote. Phillips is pulling 20 percent, other write-ins are taking 6 percent and Williamson is getting 4 percent.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538


I wonder how Nevada will affect Haley’s decision-making

Geoffrey, I wonder if Nevada will factor into Haley’s decision about whether to drop out. If she does get some favorable media attention from winning the primary, maybe that will improve her standing in South Carolina. Alternatively, if “none of the above” embarrasses her, maybe she’ll drop out.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538


So about Nevada, the next state voting in the Republican race

Haley focused her speech on South Carolina's Feb. 24 primary. But that's not technically the next contest in the Republican presidential primary. The next Republican electoral event is actually Nevada's GOP primary on Feb. 6. However, the Nevada GOP opted against using the state-run primary and instead will use caucuses on Feb. 8 to allocate delegates to candidates. As a result, the Nevada primary is a kind of "beauty contest" — a vote with no bearing on delegate allocation.

But it gets a bit stranger from there. As part of the filing rules for the caucuses, the Nevada GOP required candidates to not enter the primary taking place two days earlier. Some candidates, including Trump, didn't file for the primary. But Haley, perhaps thinking Trump winning the caucuses was a sure thing, filed for the primary and not the caucuses. So now Haley is essentially unopposed in the primary — there are a few minor candidates and drop-outs like Tim Scott and Mike Pence — and Trump is unopposed in the caucuses. Will Haley be able to play up a win in Nevada? Unclear.

But it's also possible that pro-Trump Republicans could make a concerted effort to take advantage of Nevada's unusual "none of these candidates" ballot option. Encouraging Trump voters to cast a vote for none of the above could keep Haley from winning with a majority, should enough choose it. All of this may feel about as crazy as putting your life's savings on black at the roulette table. However, state parties can opt against using a state-run primary to allocate their delegates and instead use a party-run event like a caucus — there are many examples throughout the history of presidential nomination contests. It's just not usually something that happens in an early-voting state.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538


Signs of high turnout in the Republican primary

At around 4:30 p.m., Americans for Prosperity Regional Director Greg Moore said on X (formerly Twitter) that he'd heard from sources in the New Hampshire secretary of state office that towns around the state had gone through more than 80 percent of GOP primary ballots available statewide, and that some towns were calling to ask for more to avoid running out. Polls in much of the state closed at 7 p.m Eastern, but a few places are open until 8 p.m.

Now, the Koch-affiliated AFP endorsed Haley to much fanfare earlier this cycle, so high turnout certainly would make Haley supporters feel hopeful about the number of independent voters taking part in the primary, who generally are more likely to support Haley than Trump. Still, ABC News's current total expected vote total in New Hampshire is 330,000 votes. Although that figure may change as the night wears on — it could go higher or lower — that many votes would represent nearly 30 percent of the state's entire voting-eligible population — that is, anyone who is eligible to register and vote. A turnout rate at that mark would be on par with the highest turnout in the state's modern history, which was the highly-competitive 2008 Democratic presidential primary.

Geoffrey Skelley, 538