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“Donald Trump cruised to victory in New Hampshire's Republican presidential contest on Tuesday, marching closer to a November rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden even as his only remaining rival, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, vowed to soldier on… Trump became the first Republican to sweep competitive votes in both Iowa - where he won by a record-setting margin eight days ago - and New Hampshire since 1976, when the two states cemented their status as the first nominating contests.” Reuters
Both sides agree that Trump will almost certainly be the Republican nominee:
“Early exit polls showed that nearly half of the voters who made up the state’s GOP primary electorate weren’t registered Republicans, and 6 percent of the voters personally identified as Democrats. The electorate was also more educated, libertarian and pro-abortion-rights than that of virtually any other significant GOP contest…
“If there was one state that appeared winnable for someone not named Trump, it was New Hampshire for Haley. And while she appears to have over-performed some late polling, she came up well short of a good argument for how this race might be competitive.”
Aaron Blake, Washington Post
“Chris Christie was mostly right. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley didn't get ‘smoked’ in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, but she didn't really come close to winning and her campaign won't last much longer as a result…
“The party's voters have spoken. They want Trump to be their nominee and they seem pretty pumped up about the general election. Typically when a party is out of power and preparing to take on an incumbent president, the primary contest can get nasty and divisive. Republicans won't have that problem in 2024. Roughly 80 percent of GOP voters have a favorable opinion of Trump, which is in line with how Democrats feel about Biden.”
Andrew Stiles, Washington Free Beacon
Other opinions below.
“Republicans in New Hampshire, as in Iowa, cited immigration and the economy as their top concerns. Those are meat and potato issues for Trump. With growing anger at President Biden for allowing eight million people to come across the border illegally, immigration is quickly emerging as the greatest weakness of the incumbent and the biggest potential winner for the former president.”
Liz Peek, Fox News
Some argue, “Only recently did the race become one-on-one, and only recently has Ms. Haley responded to Mr. Trump’s attacks by making a case against him. She won 62% of voters who decided in the last few days as the field consolidated, according to the exit poll. Mr. Trump won 3 of 4 Republicans, but Ms. Haley won 61% of independents. Mr. Trump derided her performance with independents, but who does he think will decide the November election?…
“To make it a race, Ms. Haley will have to toughen and expand her message. She has been reluctant to make a harder case against Mr. Trump lest she alienate people who voted for him twice. But now that it’s one-on-one she has to give Republicans reasons to favor her… The political odds still favor a Joe Biden-Trump rematch, but strange things can happen with candidates who are this old and this disliked by a majority of the public.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“Part of the problem for the Republican Party is that ‘Trumpism’ itself remains as intellectually vacuous as ever. There is not, and never has been, a Trump doctrine…
“Trumpism is whatever Trump says it is—and that changes all the time, which is just fine for voters who see whatever they want to in him while ignoring the glaring contradictions. (He, for instance, both boasts about having repealed Roe v. Wade and is the biggest skeptic of Republican abortion bans in the GOP presidential field.) This makes Trump very hard to replace when he remains on the stage.”
Alex Shephard, New Republic
“New Hampshire showed us, beyond all doubt, that Donald Trump is very, very confused. In October, in a speech in Derry, N.H., he informed his audience that Viktor Orban, the strongman who rules Hungary, is ‘the leader of Turkey.’…
“In November, in a speech in Claremont, N.H., he advised the crowd that the current leader of the United States is ‘President Obama.’ (He later claimed this mistake, which he made on several other occasions, was actually him being ‘sarcastic’ — get it?) Then, on Friday night, at a rally in Concord, N.H., Trump confused his Republican primary opponent, Nikki Haley, with former House speaker Nancy Pelosi… The very stable genius is off his game.”
Dana Milbank, Washington Post
