New Hampshire Voters Hand Victories to Trump, Biden

CONCORD, N.H.— New Hampshire voters went to the polls in droves on Tuesday and when all was said and done, at about 8 p.m., they’d handed significant victories to both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

The results, following the outcome of the Iowa Republican caucuses just over a week ago, appear to guarantee a rematch between Biden and Trump four years after the outcome of the 2020 race led to election denial, a siege on the U.S. Capitol and the latter’s historic, second impeachment.

As of 4:30 p.m. EST, with 97% of the state’s precincts reporting, Trump leads former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, 54.3% to 43.3%

On the Democratic side, where the state held a primary despite the party’s refusal to sanction it, Biden won handily despite not being on the ballot at all.

As most certainly know by now, the Democratic National Committee decided to revamp its primary calendar and make the upcoming Feb. 3 vote in South Carolina its first sanctioned contest.

Iowa Democrats, in a bid to hold onto their January caucuses, struck a bargain with the DNC in which their caucuses would be held — solely to address party business — and their actual vote would be a mail-in affair ending on Super Tuesday.

No such deal was made in New Hampshire and the DNC said the outcome of Tuesday’s vote simply will not count. 

But that posed a problem for the party. Two Democrats, Rep. Dean Phillips, of Minnesota, and self-help author Marianne Williamson, decided to run in the state anyway. And that prompted Biden supporters to carry out a grassroots campaign to get out the vote for him as a write-in candidate.

In the end, that effort appeared to be spectacularly successful with Biden handily winning the contest with 67.6% of the vote, compared to Phillips’s 19.5% and Williamson’s 3.6%.

Both races also included numerous other hopefuls thanks to the ease of qualifying to appear on the New Hampshire ballot.

The pundits all said that if Haley did not show well Tuesday night, her campaign would be all but over.

But Haley, appearing onstage in Concord less than a half hour after the polls had closed, ignored calls to drop out of the race, vowing to fight on even as the early signs suggest she’s going to lose her home state in the primary next month.

“New Hampshire is first in the nation — it is not the last in the nation,” she said as hundreds of her supporters gave up a roar of support. 

“This race is far from over,” she said.

“We’re going home to South Carolina,” she added.

Haley congratulated Trump and declared her continued opposition to him was “not personal.”

“Now we’re the last ones standing,” she said.

Haley also appeared to step into the challenge ahead, pulling lines from her stump speech to slam the former president on his mental fitness and his age, reminding voters how he had confused her for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and accused her of not providing security at the Jan. 6, 2021, siege on the Capitol

“With Donald Trump, you have one bout of chaos after another,” she said later. “This court case, that controversy, this tweet, that senior moment. You can’t fix Joe Biden’s chaos with Republican chaos.”

Listening to Haley’s speech, Trump was infuriated.

Taking the stage at his election night party, Trump announced “this is not going to be a typical victory speech” and then went on to slam Haley time and time again.

In one particularly uncomfortable moment, Trump turned to Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., whom Haley had appointed to the Senate, and said “you must really hate her,” a reference to Scott’s having endorsed him.

Scott eventually recovered the moment by saying he didn’t hate anyone, he just supported Trump.

In a written statement released after both Republicans had spoken, Biden said, “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. 

“Our Democracy. Our personal freedoms — from the right to choose to the right to vote. Our economy — which has seen the strongest recovery in the world since COVID. All are at stake,” he continued.

“I want to thank all those who wrote in my name this evening in New Hampshire. It was a historic demonstration of commitment to our democratic process,” Biden said. “And I want to say to all those Independents and Republicans who share our commitment to core values of our nation — our Democracy, our personal freedoms, an economy that gives everyone a fair shot — to join us as Americans.

“Let’s remember. We are the United States of America. And there is nothing — nothing — we can’t do if we do it together,” the president added.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and at https://twitter.com/DanMcCue