Trump trounces rival who refuses to quit
NEW HAMPSHIRE: Donald Trump has landed what he hopes is the fatal blow on his last remaining rival for the Republican presidential nomination with a convincing victory in the New Hampshire primary.
Despite facing 91 criminal charges and the threat of jail, the former president now appears all but certain to be the party’s candidate in November’s election, setting up an extraordinary rematch with Joe Biden.
But former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley ignored Mr Trump’s calls for her to abandon her presidential campaign on Tuesday night (local time), vowing to fight on as she maintained: “This race is far from over.”
Mr Trump’s dominant lead in the polls had knocked out several contenders even before last week’s Iowa caucuses, the first Republican nominating contest which he won by a record 30-point margin.
That ended Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s White House campaign and turned the more moderate state of New Hampshire into a twoperson race against Ms Haley.
While she performed strongly among independent voters, she only received 44.5 per cent of the vote as of 10.30pm with 61 per cent of all ballots counted. Mr Trump recorded a convincing majority with 54 per cent of the votes.
On his social media platform, he blasted Ms Haley as “DELUSIONAL” for staying in the race.
“Who the hell was the impostor that went up on the stage and claimed a victory? She did very poorly. She had to win … she failed badly,” the told supporters. “We had one hell of a night tonight.”
But in her upbeat concession speech, Ms Haley said: “New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not last in the nation. There are dozens of states left to go and the next one is my sweet state of South Carolina,” she added. “We are just getting started.”
That primary – in the state she led from 2011 to 2017 – is due to be held in a month. Mr Trump bragged that he was leading in South Carolina by 30 percentage points in the polls, highlighting the scale of Ms Haley’s challenge.
“At the end of the day, that’s not what Americans want. Americans want a choice and we’re going to give them one,” Ms Haley said.
She dared the former president to face her in a head-tohead debate, drawing attention to his refusal to take the stage against the other Republican candidates throughout the race.
New Hampshire also held an unsanctioned primary for the Democratic nomination on Tuesday after Mr Biden ordered its first-in-the-nation status be given to South Carolina.
While the President refused to appear on the ballot, he still claimed victory over littleknown Democratic congressman Dean Phillips and selfhelp author Marianne Williamson, thanks to his supporters writing down his name on their voting papers.
Mr Biden’s campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said: “One thing is increasingly clear today: Donald Trump is headed straight into a general election matchup where he’ll face the only person to have ever beaten him at the ballot box.”