Haley’s a loooong shot in NH
Former President Donald Trump is heading for an easy victory in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, according to two polls taken after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race.
Trump, 77, faces a single major GOP competitor, former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, who trails badly in the latest surveys — but did manage to secure the first six votes in the primary in Dixville Notch, the famous small village near the Canadian border with a five-decade-old tradition of midnight voting.
Trump has 57% support to 38% for Haley, according to fresh Suffolk University/NBC Boston/Boston Globe tracking poll data from 500 voters surveyed over the weekend.
Trump has an even larger lead, with 62% backing to Haley’s 35%, in an InsiderAdvantage poll of 850 likely voters conducted Sunday.
The results suggest an early end to the competitive phase of the party primaries — with Trump winning the Iowa caucuses last week by almost a 30-point margin and expected to trounce Haley, 52, in next month’s South Carolina primary, if she hasn’t dropped out.
New Hampshire has an open primary system, meaning that independent voters are able to cast ballots in either the Democratic or Republican race — offering Haley, who has the backing of the Granite State’s GOP governor, Chris Sununu, one of her best shots at halting Trump’s march to the nomination.
DeSantis, who placed a distant second in Iowa, announced Sunday afternoon he was dropping out and endorsing Trump as polls showed him averaging single-digit support in New Hampshire.