New Hampshire primary: Haley congratulates Trump, says race ‘far from over’

New Hampshire Republicans on Tuesday chose former President Donald Trump over former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the first-in-the-nation primary of 2024. According to The Associated Press and other news outlets, Trump is projected to win the race.

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Update 10:46 p.m. EST Jan. 23: With an estimated 59% of the vote counted, Trump continues to retain a double-digit lead in percentage points.

Trump has pulled in 54.5% of the vote, compared to 43.5% for Haley, CNN reported. The New York Times reported the margin as 55% to 43.5% with an estimated 74% of the vote counted.

Update 9:27 p.m. EST Jan. 23: Trump, speaking to supporters in Nashua, said that his campaign “wins it every time” and said that Haley was “doing a victory dance” even though she was projected to lose handily to the former president. He added that “this is not your typical victory speech” as he criticized the former South Carolina governor.

“She did a speech like she won,” Trump said. “She didn’t win, she lost.”

Trump added that “we had one hell of a night” and continued to criticize Haley.

“Who the hell was the impostor that went up on the stage that went before and claimed victory?” Trump told his supporters. “She did very poorly, actually.”

Update 9:18 p.m. EST Jan. 23: Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy criticized Haley for her promise to remain in the primary race.

“The fact that Nikki is pressing ahead exposes the ugly underbelly of this race: There’s no way she can defeat Trump through the front door, so her donor puppet masters are propping her up long enough while plotting to eliminate Trump from the ballot,” Ramaswamy wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Update 9:11 p.m. EST Jan. 23: President Joe Biden’s campaign acknowledged that Trump has “all but locked up” the 2024 Republican nomination for president.

“Tonight’s results confirm Donald Trump has all but locked up the GOP nomination, and the election-denying, anti-freedom MAGA movement has completed its takeover of the Republican Party,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement. ”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: Joe Biden.”

Update 8:54 p.m. EST Jan. 23: Trump told Fox News that Haley “should” suspend her campaign.

“She should because, otherwise, we have to keep wasting money instead of spending on Biden,” Trump told the network in an exclusive interview. “If she doesn’t drop out, we have to waste money instead of spending it on (Joe) Biden, which is our focus.”

Update 8:43 p.m. EST Jan. 23: Trump’s super PAC is urging Haley to drop out of the race, CNN reported.

“It’s time for unity, it’s time to take the fight to the Democrats, and for Nikki Haley: it’s time to drop out,” Taylor Budowich, the CEO of MAGA Inc., said in a statement.”Nikki Haley said she’s running to stop the re-election of Harris-Biden. Yet, without a viable path to victory, every day she stays in this race is another day she delivers to the Harris-Biden campaign.”

Update 8:27 p.m. EST Jan. 23: Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley congratulated former President Donald Trump on his victory in New Hampshire’s Republican primary on Tuesday, but said she was not ending her run for the nomination.

“I want to congratulate Donald Trump on his victory tonight. He earned it, and I want to acknowledge that,” Haley told supporters in Concord. “Now you’ve all heard the chatter among the political class. They’re falling all over themselves saying this race is over. New Hampshire is first in the nation, but it is not the last in the nation. This race is far from over.”

Haley characterized herself as a “a fighter. And I’m scrappy.”

“We still have a ways to go,” Haley told the audience. “But we keep moving up.”

“South Carolina voters don’t want a coronation,” Haley said. “They want an election.” She ended her remarks by vowing, “We are just getting started.”

Update 8:25 p.m. EST Jan. 23: Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a critic of Trump, has endorsed the former president on Tuesday night, The New York Times reported. In a post on X, Cornyn said that “Republicans need to unite around a single candidate.”

Update 8:21 p.m. EST Jan. 23: The New York Times and CNN followed the AP’s lead, projecting Trump as the victor over Haley in the Republican primary in New Hampshire.

Update 8:18 p.m. EST Jan. 23: According to election officials in Ward 3 in the city of Nashua, Trump held a 771-691 advantage among voters.

Update 8:10 p.m. EST Jan. 23: The Associated Press has projected former President Donald Trump as the winner of the Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire. The news organization’s projection came minutes after all of the polls closed in the Granite State. The AP also noted that President Joe Biden is the projected winner of the Democratic primary in the state. Biden was not on the ballot but received strong support in write-in ballots.

Update 8:02 p.m. EST Jan. 23: All of the polls have closed in New Hampshire. CNN reported that President Joe Biden is projected to win the Democrat Party’s vote as a write-in candidate.

Update 7:52 p.m. EST Jan. 23: With 11% of precincts reporting, Trump is leading Haley by a margin of 52.2% to 46.8% in the GOP race, CNN reported.

Update 7:39 p.m. EST Jan. 23: David Scanlan, New Hampshire’s secretary of state, told CNN that turnout on Tuesday by Republican voters was high, The New York Times reported. Scanlan had predicted a record 322,000 voters in the GOP primary, adding that some towns had requested more ballots during the day.

“I think my number’s in line, and it’s possible we’ll exceed it,” Scanlan told the cable news network.

Update 7:31 p.m. EST Jan. 23: With 5% of the Democratic primary vote counted, Marianne Williamson has nearly doubled her total from the 2020 New Hampshire primary, The New York Times reported. She had 95 votes in 2020.

Update 7:27 EST Jan. 23: The town of Belmont in the central part of the state reported 1,244 votes for Trump, compared to 640 for Haley.

Update 7:19 p.m. EST Jan. 23: With 1% of all precincts reporting, Haley owns a lead over Trump, 54.1% to 45.6%, CNN reported.

Update 7:16 p.m. EST Jan. 23: Ward 6 in Manchester announced its results. Trump led the GOP field with 1,169 votes, while Haley had 849 votes.

Update 7:10 p.m. EST Jan. 23: Ward 10 in Concord reported that Haley had 739 votes, while Trump had 467 votes.

Update 7:05 p.m. EST Jan. 23: Most of the polls have closed in New Hampshire. The last polls will close at 8 p.m.

Original report: While the Iowa caucus was held on Jan. 15 and was a meeting of electors, the race in New Hampshire is a primary with secret balloting.

The state passed a law in 1975 that requires that New Hampshire’s primary should be conducted before any other state in the nation.

Registered Republicans and Democrats vote in their own primaries, but independents in New Hampshire have the option of asking for a ballot from either party to vote.

There are 22 delegates at stake in the New Hampshire primary. As election day dawned, Trump appeared to be the front-runner in the race. The campaign became a two-candidate race when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Sunday that he was suspending his presidential campaign.

Voting began early, with the tiny community of Dixville Notch casting its six votes shortly after midnight. Since 1960, the township has been the first to vote in the New Hampshire primary.

Haley got off to a good start, collecting all six votes.

For Democrats, President Joe Biden is the first sitting president running for reelection who did not appear on New Hampshire’s primary ballot. Voters can still vote for the president by writing in his name on the ballot.

Biden has two prominent challengers in his party on the New Hampshire ballot: U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips from Minnesota, and author Marianne Williamson, who also sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2020.

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