Trump's New Hampshire win looks like an exclamation mark on his transformation of the GOP: ANALYSIS

New Hampshire marked the first primary Donald Trump won in 2016, back when the GOP establishment and much of the nation would not or could not imagine what was coming.

New Hampshire may also go down as the last primary Trump was pressed to win in 2024, despite organized and well-funded efforts to break the hold he has over Republican voters -- and clear demonstrations of who he is, what he represents and the perils associated with his renomination.

Trump's solid win in Tuesday's Republican primary in New Hampshire leaves the campaign for the GOP nomination hanging by a southern thread. His former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is the last major candidate standing and now has to explain away what is projected to be a double-digit loss to anxious donors and voters, with her home state of South Carolina serving as a potential last stand -- a full month away.

Haley on Tuesday night congratulated Trump but declared that while New Hampshire is the first-in-the-nation primary state, it is far from the last. Reiterating her attacks on Trump's mental acuity and electability, she reminded supporters that the next major state up is "my sweet state of South Carolina."

"We still have a ways to go. But we keep moving up," she said. "A Trump nomination is a [Joe] Biden win and a Kamala Harris presidency."

Trump's victory speech lashed out at Haley as an "imposter" claiming victories even as she went down handily in defeat -- while he also repeated lies about the 2020 election and mocked Biden's own ability to do the job.

"She didn't win -- she lost," the former president said of Haley, offering just a hint of the vicious campaigning expected to come.

Haley's finish in New Hampshire was stronger than recent polls suggested it might be. Exit polls show that was driven by a far different electorate than in the Iowa caucuses eight days earlier, with independent voters -- those not affiliated with either party -- representing a record 47% of primary voters.

New Hampshire voters were also far more moderate than those in Iowa. From the Haley campaign's perspective, her margins among suburban independents, higher-educated Republicans and women in particular display the weaknesses Trump would have in a general election -- weaknesses Haley and her allies want GOP voters to take into account now rather than when it's too late to change course.

Yet Haley got the one-on-one shot she and virtually everyone else to run against Trump said they craved and still fell short. She benefitted from late drop-outs from major rivals, the financial and organizing support of a Koch-backed political advocacy organization and the energetic backing of New Hampshire's popular Republican governor, Chris Sununu.

She also was given significant openings by Trump himself. His courtroom appearances stemming from multiple criminal investigations kept him off the campaign trail (he denies all wrongdoing), and his statements gave fodder both to perceptions that he would misuse the powers of the presidency and that he may be losing a mental step.

The Haley team along with what's left of the GOP's anti-Trump movement now turn their nervous attention to upcoming states where their prospects are less than bright. Having foregone the MAGA-wired Nevada caucuses on Feb. 6, no significant voting will take place on the Republican side until Feb. 24, when South Carolina's primary -- which, like New Hampshire, permits non-Republicans to cast votes -- takes place.

Haley trails by 30-plus points in the 538 polling average in that state, despite the fact that she was elected twice statewide as governor. After that, the campaign has laid out a scattered geographic strategy that targets open primaries in Michigan and then a handful of March 5 Super Tuesday states -- "significant fertile ground," according to a campaign memo released Tuesday, that includes Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Texas and Vermont.

But the campaign will come up against the reality that it will be hard to find ground more fertile than New Hampshire, with its big share of independents voting and history of, as Haley put it, "correcting" what Iowa does.

Trump's election-night attacks notwithstanding, more prominent Republicans called for the nominating race to end quickly. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who had previously endorsed Trump, said late Tuesday that it was time to "unite around President Trump."

President Biden essentially declared the primaries over, too -- anticipating a rematch, nearly 10 long months from now, that much of the country dreads.

"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," Biden said in a statement.

Trump's victory on Tuesday could serve as a historical bookend to his transformation of the Republican Party, particularly if it signals the beginning of the end of efforts to oppose his third consecutive nomination.

But more likely it'll look like an exclamation point.

Whereas Trump's 2016 roll through the primaries might have been a consequence of a divided party with too many candidates, his 2024 romp may be remembered for how the GOP fell into line behind what could appear, in retrospect, to have been inevitable.

Blame for Trump's continued strength is already circulating inside and outside of the Republican Party.

The real explanations, though, start and end with a simple fact:

When Republicans get the chance to vote, they continue to support Trump over anyone else the party has to offer.