Former U.S. President Donald Trump and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley are facing off Tuesday in a Republican primary election in the northeastern state of New Hampshire, with Trump looking to carry momentum from a win last week in Iowa and Haley trying to earn a boost for her campaign to be the party’s nominee in the November general election.
Polls do not close until the evening in most parts of the state, but in the tiny town of Dixville Notch, voters cast their ballots just after midnight with all six going to Haley.
That result was not indicative of pre-voting opinion polls in New Hampshire, which showed Trump well ahead of Haley. A Suffolk University/Boston Globe/WBTS poll released Monday had Trump with 57% support compared to 38% for Haley.
Trump won last week’s Iowa caucuses with more than 50% of the vote, with Haley coming in third place.
The race for the Republican presidential nomination has evolved since Iowa, with second-place finished Ron DeSantis dropping out, along with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy who finished a distant fourth.
That leaves Trump and Haley as the only major candidates remaining in the battle to face the presumed Democratic nominee, President Joe Biden.
Haley said Monday during a final day of campaigning, “This is a two-person race.”
She cast her candidacy as bringing “new solutions” in contrast to a potential second Trump term that would mean “more of the same.”
“We can either do the whole thing that we’ve always done and live in that chaos world that we’ve had, or we can go forward with no drama, no vendettas and some results for the American people,” Haley told reporters.
Trump, who has garnered endorsements from former competitors including DeSantis and Ramaswamy, told his supporters the Republican Party is “becoming more and more unified” as he looked toward the potential of knocking Haley out of the race and facing Biden.
“I think one person will be gone probably tomorrow and the other one will be gone in November,” Trump said. “But now is the time for the Republican Party to come together. We have to unify.”
