by With only about 48 hours left to campaign in the New Hampshire primary, Nikki Haley finally got the two-person race she wanted.
It may not live up to your expectations.
For months, it has been an article of faith among Haley’s supporters and a coalition of anti-Trump Republicans that the only way to defeat Donald J. Trump was to narrow the field to a one-on-one race and consolidate support among his opponents. .
That wishful thinking came true Sunday afternoon, when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ended his bid for the White House.
And yet, as the race came to the final day, there were few signs that DeSantis’ departure would transform Haley’s chances of winning.
Haley quickly learned that the role of the latest woman to oppose Trump meant serving as the latest target of a party vying to fall in line behind the former president.
Two former rivals in the race, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and DeSantis, endorsed the former president. The party’s Senate campaign manager proclaimed Trump the “presumptive nominee.” And Trump campaign strategists promised that she would be “absolutely embarrassed and demolished” in her home state of South Carolina, the next big prize on the calendar.
Campaigning across New Hampshire on Sunday, Haley and her supporters celebrated the demise of the DeSantis campaign.
“Can you hear that sound?” she asked more than 1,000 people gathered in a high school gym in Exeter, NH, her most attended event in the state. “That’s the sound of a two-person race.”
Fifty-five miles north, in Rochester, NH, Trump told his crowd to expect a victory so decisive that it would effectively end the primary. “This should be over,” he said.
Haley supporters in the state said they felt that pressure. Some worried aloud that she had had trouble with Trump for so long that her aggressiveness in the final weekend of the primary would be inadequate to persuade tough New Hampshire voters that she had enough fight to beat him. former president.
A Republican activist supporting Haley said he kept his sign in his garage yard because Trump’s victory seemed inevitable. Another Haley supporter, Fergus Cullen, former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, described his support for the former governor as half-hearted. He said he couldn’t bring himself to defend Ms. Haley on social media or lean on friends and family to vote for her.
“Too little, too late,” Cullen said of Haley’s prospects. “She had to inspire and engage unaffiliated voters, and I just haven’t seen her do what she needs to do to reach that audience and get them to participate in the numbers that she needs.”
Most polls last week showed Trump up a dozen points or more. A Suffolk University/Boston Globe/NBC10 Boston Daily New Hampshire Voter Tracking Poll showed Trump steadily increasing his lead over Haley, with a margin of 53 percent to 36 percent on Saturday.
Haley’s performance on Tuesday is likely to determine the future of her campaign and possibly her political career. Anything less than a victory or a narrow loss would put pressure on her to withdraw rather than face three weeks of punishing ads from the Trump campaign in her home state, where she is already behind.
Their best chance for survival is a high turnout among New Hampshire’s independent voters, who make up 40 percent of the state’s electorate, while Republicans make up about 30 percent.
New Hampshire’s secretary of state has been predicting record turnout on Tuesday, a scenario that both campaigns claimed would bolster their chances of success.
Haley’s team believes that increased turnout would mean greater turnout among independent and moderate voters who are more likely to support her. They took Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign as a model. McCain won the state’s primary by dominating independent voters and fighting to a tie among Republicans, according to exit polls.
Haley, however, appears to be trailing by a wide margin among Republicans, according to public polls. in the follow-up surveyHaley led independents, 49 percent to 41, but was nearly 20 points behind Trump overall, largely due to her wide margin over Republicans, 65 percent to 25 percent.
Haley’s donors and allies argued that DeSantis’ departure could spur more donations and help sharpen the contrast between her and the former president. Both Haley and DeSantis struggled to find ways to criticize Trump without discouraging Republicans who may be open to alternatives but still fond of him.
But some veteran political operatives in the state suggested there may not be enough anti-Trump Republicans and moderate independents to make the numbers work.
“Haley has solidified the anti-Trump vote, but she will be surpassed by the Rubik’s Cube that no one has been able to crack yet,” said Matt Mowers, a former Republican House candidate from New Hampshire who was endorsed by both Trump and from Mrs. Trump. .Haley.
As she delivered her speech Saturday with new urgency, Haley’s attacks on Trump were at times softened by including Biden in the criticism.
“What are Joe Biden and Donald Trump talking about?” asked Ms. Haley, at her rally in Exeter. “The investigations they’re on, the distractions they have, the people they’re angry at, their hurt feelings, and they haven’t shown us a shred of vision for the future, not a single one.”
Jane Freeman, 55, a retired flight attendant and undeclared voter in Exeter, wrinkled her brow and let out a sigh when asked about DeSantis’ endorsement of Trump.
“Trump is a complicated thing,” said Freeman, who voted for the former president in 2016 and 2020 but now supports Haley. “I really wish he would have waited,” he said of DeSantis. Still, he said Haley had the right momentum and continued to win over voters. “I’m nervous, but I’m really hopeful,” she said.
Anjali Huynh and miguel gold contributed with reports.
