Trump planned to hold his last rally before the election on Monday night. He started the day in New York for his defamation trial after an earlier jury determined he had sexually abused a columnist in the 1990s, but the session was cancelled because a juror was ill.
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Trump was being joined on stage on Monday night by three of his former opponents who have now endorsed him: South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. The show of force is part of a broader effort by Trump’s team to lock up the primary and demonstrate the party is rallying around him.
In an interview with Newsmax taped on Sunday, Trump was asked if he would call for Haley to drop out.
“Well, I would never call for it, but perhaps she should,” he said. He called New Hampshire “a special place for me”, noting his win in the 2016 primary. “I love this state.”
On paper, Trump had seemed more vulnerable in New Hampshire than in any other early voting state on the primary calendar.
Though voters there supported him by a wide margin in 2016, the state has long been known for its moderate tradition, including allowing unaffiliated voters to participate in Republican primaries. And Haley had been on the rise, prompting Trump’s campaign and its allies to spend millions trying to blunt her momentum.
Republicans control the nominating process. They are with Donald Trump, growing every day
Thalia Flores, a former Democrat and shop manager, changed her voter registration to undeclared last autumn and plans to vote in New Hampshire’s Republican presidential primary against Trump. She said she would support Haley over Biden if given the chance, even though she has never before voted for a Republican presidential candidate.
But she said she was worried the primary was “a long shot” with not enough support for Haley among traditional conservatives to beat Trump.
But some evidence suggests Trump could be better positioned to capitalise on DeSantis’ exit than Haley. According to Associated Press VoteCast, DeSantis supporters in Iowa overwhelmingly described themselves as conservative and Trump outperformed Haley 53 per cent to 13 per cent among that group.
DeSantis immediately endorsed Trump upon dropping out, saying it was clear to him Republican voters preferred the former president.
Never before has a presidential candidate won primary contests in both Iowa and New Hampshire and failed to secure the party’s presidential nomination.
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“If she doesn’t win here, there’s no path for her whatsoever going forward,” said James Blair, national field director for the Trump campaign. “Republicans control the nominating process. They are with Donald Trump, growing every day. We see consolidation all over the place since Iowa.”
To help get out the vote, Trump’s team says it has amassed a team of 2,000 active volunteers, including 250 town captains throughout the state.
Trump’s campaign was confident about New Hampshire long before DeSantis’ exit. Officials point to public polls showing Trump with a big lead over Haley.
“If it’s a double-digit win, then, I mean, that is a New Hampshire blowout of epic proportions, especially given all of the time and money she spent here,” Blair said.
Haley’s campaign has been lowering expectations for New Hampshire after insisting for weeks that an outright victory against Trump was possible.
“Beating Donald Trump is not easy. He is a juggernaut,” Haley campaign manager Betsy Ankney said at a weekend event hosted by Bloomberg. “But how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. We have to continue to show incremental growth and progress. We are the last man – woman – standing against him.”
Trump’s confidence comes even as influential Republicans in the state such as New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu warn of dire political consequences.
“Republicans are tired of losing. We’re tired of losers. We’re tired of Donald Trump,” Sununu told roughly 500 Haley supporters gathered in the state’s largest city over the weekend.
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On Monday, Haley spoke on New Hampshire Today with host Chris Ryan and compared Trump to Biden, bringing up how Trump has confused her with former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, mistakenly said he ran against former US President Barack Obama, and warned about Biden leading the country into World War II, which was fought between 1939 and 1945.
“When you have two 80-year-olds running for president, you are going to see decline,” she said. “It’s natural. It’s what happens.”
Still, the tens of thousands of voters who have packed into Trump’s New Hampshire rallies in recent days do not seem to be worried and he makes little effort to lower expectations.