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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Trump doing about 20 points better than 2016

As we often say here at 538, results that come in early on election night can be misleading. That's because if you look at just the statewide results you don't know what's left to come in from where. Currently there's only 18% of expected votes reporting — so we're nowhere near what media networks and race-callers need to project the outcome.

That being said... One thing we can do is compare how Trump is doing relative to his 2016 vote share in towns that are fully or nearly fully reporting results. I took at look at five — Concord, Weare, Seabrook, Alton, and Conway — and Trump's doing an average of 20 points better than in 2016. As a crude guess, that would put him somewhere around 55 percent of the vote. If Haley gets the remaining votes, that would shake out as a high single-digits or low double-digits win for Trump. In other words, a little better than expected for Haley.

—G. Elliott Morris, 538


ABC News projects that Biden will win the Granite State

Well, it remains to be seen by how much, but ABC News projects that Biden will win the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary. We have limited returns, but "unprocessed write-ins" are clearing 70 percent at the moment, much of which will be ballots cast for Biden.

Geoffrey Skelley, 538


How does Hanover go?

In 2016, one of Trump's worst performances came in Hanover, which is home to Dartmouth College, and sits due north of Lebanon. Trump came in fourth place there, with just 10.7 percent, behind Kasich, Rubio and Bush. It's not a ton of votes there — just over 1,600 votes cast in the 2016 primary — but it's a place Haley needs to dominate in tonight.

—Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections


How to win and lose the New Hampshire primary at the same time

Earlier, Nathaniel wrote about what would constitute a win for Trump and for Haley. But it’s worth remembering that in the 1968 Democratic primary, Eugene McCarthy surprised observers by taking 42 percent of the vote against incumbent President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who won 48 percent. Despite winning New Hampshire, by the end of the month, LBJ had dropped out of the race, famously declaring, "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president."

Dan Hopkins, 538 contributor


Welcome to 538's New Hampshire primary live blog!

It's been only eight days since Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses last Monday, but a lot has happened since then. On the night of the caucuses, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out of the race and endorsed former President Donald Trump, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis followed suit on Sunday. With former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson also leaving the race last week, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is Trump's last major competitor standing.

And everyone has their eyes on New Hampshire as potentially the only state where Trump has a realistic chance of losing. Haley has invested heavily in New Hampshire and has been suggesting since early December that today's race would be the start of a competitive two-person primary between her and Trump. She's got her two-person race, but whether it will be remotely competitive remains to be seen. Trump has only continued to consolidate party support since his Iowa victory, and anything less than a convincing win for him would be surprising.

So when might we know? First polls will close tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern, and last polls will close at 8 p.m., which is the earliest time we could have a race projection. But as we did last week (when Trump's victory was projected only 30 minutes after caucuses had begun), we will of course be sticking around no matter what happens to see how each candidate does across the state and discuss what it could mean for the rest of 2024.

And that's not all! Granite State Democrats also have a primary today, and it's a weird one — New Hampshire is violating Democratic primary calendar rules by holding it so early. As a result, President Joe Biden isn't campaigning or even on the ballot, but his competitors, Rep. Dean Phillips and self-help author Marianne Williamson, are. While Biden isn't expected to face serious competition for the actual nomination, his margin of victory today as a write-in candidate could be one early sign of Democrats' grassroots enthusiasm for the incumbent.

Bookmark this page for updates and analysis throughout the night!

—Tia Yang, 538