2024 New Hampshire Republican Primary

(The Guardian) In the final hours before polls opened, Nikki Haley held a rally with supporters at a swanky new hotel in Salem, a suburb in New Hampshire.

“We’ve got a lot on the line here,” Haley told the crowd, which packed a chandeliered ballroom, and spilled into the lobby. Making her closing pitch, she told supporters: If you go to the polls tomorrow – and take five people with you – and you commit to getting us back on track, I will spend every single day proving to you that you made a good decision.

In her remarks, Haley attempted to showcase the breadth of her appeal, pushing back on Donald Trump’s accusations that she’s relying on moderates and liberals to boost her campaign.

She pointed into the crowd at Don Bolduc, a combat veteran who backed Haley after losing a Trump-endorsed bid for Senate in 2022 during which he claimed the 2020 election had been stolen. He later tried to reverse those claims in the general election, but it was seen as a factor in his loss to Democratic senator, Maggie Hassan. “He’s as conservative as they get,” Haley beamed. And then she pointed to the state’s Republican governor, Chris Sununu, who has escorted her across the state for the last week. He’s a “moderate”, she noted. Left unsaid was that he is one of Trump’s few prominent Republican critics.

Introducing Haley in Salem, Sununu reminded the crowd that since Trump was elected in 2016, Republicans had lost the House, Senate and the White House. He said New Hampshire Republicans had fared poorly too, with several of Trump’s allies in the state losing their elections in the 2022 midterms. “Hey Donald Trump, where the F is the ‘red wave,’” he said. “Give me a break.”

(The Guardian) Asked if she would drop out should Donald Trump beat her by double digits in New Hampshire, Nikki Haley said that she has “never done what he tells me to do”. She added: I’m running against Donald Trump. And I’m not going to talk about an obituary.

A memo by Haley’s campaign manager earlier today appeared to be a direct response to a Trump campaign memo on Sunday that suggested tonight’s results could prompt her to exit the race.

The Trump campaign memo, written by the former president’s advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, argued that Haley faces only two options if she loses in New Hampshire: to drop out and back Trump, or to be prepared to be “absolutely DEMOLISHED and EMBARASSED in her home state of South Carolina”.

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Windham high school in Windham, New Hampshire, is a flurry of activity right now, with warmly dressed voters scurrying from their cars to the warmth of the voting booths inside.

Tina Lorenz, who is wearing a white puffer jacket with a series of red accessories – “I’m being patriotic,” she said – has been a Donald Trump supporter since 2016.

“He is representing the American people. He is not out for himself. He’s not out for political gain. He’s not out for financial reasons. He doesn’t need money, he doesn’t need fame and fortune. He already has all of that,” Lorenz, 63, said. -- He is out there for the average person. And that’s what’s happening, we’ve become so polarized, that there’s nobody out there for just regular people.

Tina Lorenz, right, and Ed Schoen, behind, outside the polling place at Windham High School in Windham, N.H. Photograph: Michael Dwyer/AP


Democratic candidate for President and Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips greets voters during the New Hampshire Primary at a voting site at Windham High School in Windham, New Hampshire. Photograph: Amanda Sabga/UPI/REX/Shutterstock

(The Guardian) Mary Riddell, 64, a retired teacher, wrote in Joe Biden’s name at the polls in Bicentennial elementary school in Nashua, New Hampshire. She said: He’s a good, strong Democrat with democratic ideals. America’s already a fabulous country. We’re doing great the way it is. I believe in public education, believe in teaching history correctly, believe in having access to books, believe in sharing the wealth to everyone in our country, believe in welcoming immigrants and, I just believe in doing what’s right.

Riddell did not consider voting for Dean Phillips or Marianne Williamson. “They’re great people, they have good messages but we’ve got to rally behind Joe Biden and make sure that Trump doesn’t return for another four years because it was an angry, chaotic time in our country and we can’t go back to that.”

How did Riddell feel about having to write in Biden’s name rather than cast a traditional vote? “I’m pretty strong, I’m pretty brave, I can write a name in. If that’s what’s expected of us to preserve our democracy, then we can rise to the challenge and do that.”

Riddell said she understood the logic of moving New Hampshire down the primary electoral calendar. “I would like it to be more inclusive of different peoples, of different races, of different genders, of different ethnic groups, of different political persuasions. New Hampshire’s a great state, a lovely state, but not representative of the rest of the country. -- Sometimes things have to change. We’ve gone through a lot of changes. The world’s going through changes. We can write in somebody and it’s time. It’s good that South Carolina is going to have a chance. Let other states that are just more ethnically diverse have a chance because that’s what our country is becoming and we welcome it.

A supporter of Donald Trump holds signs near a voting site at Londonderry high school in Londonderry, New Hampshire, on Tuesday. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA


Voters fill out their ballots at a polling location at Bedford high school in Bedford, New Hampshire. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

(The Guardian) “I’m a die hard Republican, and I voted for president Trump,” declared 73-year-old Mark Gonyer as he left the polling station in downtown Concord. -- I don’t like some of the things he did, but out of all the candidates, he’s the best one.

There are, of course, far fewer candidates in the race than there were just a few months ago. Florida governor Ron DeSantis dropped out two days ago, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie quit before the Iowa caucuses and Vivek Ramaswamy exited after performing poorly in the Hawkeye state.

The one candidate left who could beat Trump in New Hampshire today – despite his big lead in recent polls – is former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, but Gonyer wasn’t interested. “She’s got some good points,” he conceded, but said, based on his experience with female politicians nationwide and in New Hampshire, he didn’t think Haley was up to the task.

“I would give her a shot but look at Hillary Clinton, look at our vice-president we had now,” said Gonyer, who delivers auto parts and rebuilds old tractors. “She hasn’t done anything.”

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Martin Janoschek, 57, is a Republican-leaning independent who did not want to vote for Donald Trump, and thus voted for Nikki Haley.

“I know she’s a longshot,” said Janoschek, who is unemployed. -- I think she’s a pretty common-sensical person, from what I heard.

But if it comes down to Trump or Joe Biden in the November general election, as polls indicate it most likely will, Janoschek will probably vote for the former president over the current one, even though he doesn’t like his style. -- “He’s a little bit bombastic,” he said.

(The Guardian) Trump and Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene made an appearance at a polling place in Londonderry, New Hampshire, as voting is under way in the state’s primary.

Greene helped stomp for Trump, declaring on social media that the primary was “over” and that “Donald Trump is our nominee”.

When asked if she had a final message for New Hampshire voters, Greene said, in part: “I think the big message is that this is a referendum on the Republican party and it’s been coming. Republican voters…are sick and tired of uni-party Republicans, the neo-con establishment wing of the party.”

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Voters arrived at a steady pace to cast their ballots in Derry, home to the largest polling place in the country. In a sign of the town’s importance to Haley’s hopes of a David v Goliath-sized upset on Tuesday night, the candidate dropped by to thank volunteers.

Steve Pearson, who represents Derry in the state legislature, was holding the lone Haley sign when I spoke to him outside of Pinkerton Academy high school. A raucous group of Trump campaign volunteers lined the sidewalk with signs next to a scattered group holding signs for Democratic candidates Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson. On the opposite side, a handful of people urged voters to “write in” Joe Biden’s name.

Just after midday, Jim MacEachern, a Republican who serves on the town council, said 3,700 people had already cast their ballots. Roughly 700 people chose a Democratic ballot while 3,000 took a Republican one.

If the pace keeps, and the weather keeps cooperating, he predicted the polling booth would see as many as 12,000 people by the end of the day. “For a primary, that’s pretty damn good,” MacEachern said. The secretary of state had predicted record-breaking turnout among Republicans, and Derry’s strong participation is a sign New Hampshire might be on track to do that.

“A high turnout will bode well for her,” Pearson told me. “Because the diehard Trump Trump folks are coming out either way. It’s the independents, it’s the Republicans who are looking to find a candidate that they think is electable” who will make the difference.

"For too long we’ve treated the primary as the prize when the prize is the White House,” he said. “You needed a candidate who is electable at a national scale.”