New Hampshire primary 2024 results LIVE updates: Trump defeats Nikki Haley to claim pivotal win for Republican nomination

Concord, New Hampshire: Donald Trump has defeated former UN ambassador Nikki Haley in the New Hampshire Republican primary, a resounding victory that places him one step closer to returning to the White House.

A week after he dominated the Iowa caucuses, Trump has beaten his last remaining rival in a move that many political experts believe all but guarantees he will secure the Republican presidential nomination.

Donald Trump takes a photo with a supporter at a campaign stop in Londonderry, New Hampshire.Credit: AP

The victory is a significant blow for 52-year-old Haley, a two-term former South Carolina governor who had pitched herself as a “new generation” conservative leader who could put an end to the “chaos” of the past few years.

But in a speech after the result, she declared that she would continue to fight Trump in other primaries starting with her home state next month – and noting that “most Americans do not want a rematch between Biden and Trump”.

“Our country is in a real mess and the question is who’s going to fix it?” Haley said at her campaign watch party in Concord, New Hampshire’s capital.

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

The result cements Trump’s control over the party, despite having 91 criminal charges against him. He will now move on to the Nevada primaries, which he is set to win, and then to South Carolina in late February, where he is currently ahead in the polls.

Read North America correspondent Farrah Tomazin’s full report here.

For months, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis offered only muted criticism of the former president, wary of his popularity with the Republican base.

Each was more frontal in attacking him as voting drew nearer, especially Haley in the closing days before New Hampshire. It was too late to help DeSantis, who suspended his campaign this week after finishing a distant second in Iowa.

Nikki Haley and Donald Trump.Credit: AP

Haley drew attention to the 77-year-old former president seeming to confuse her and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, directly taking on his mental fitness in ways she’d only vaguely alluded to before.

The punches didn’t land, but Haley continued them on after the primary result, digging again at Trump’s mental fitness during her concession speech. “Most Americans do not want a rematch between Biden and Trump,” Haley said. “The first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the party that wins this election.”

It was a road not taken until the last minute. Haley doesn’t have a lot of travel time left.

AP

US President Joe Biden fended off a challenge from within his own party in New Hampshire, defeating Representative Dean Phillips to help quell calls for the 81-year-old to pass the torch to a younger Democrat.

With 39 per cent of votes counted, Phillips had only 20.5 per cent of the vote, an extraordinary victory for the president as a write-in candidate.

Joe Biden’s success in New Hampshire will help quieten his critics.Credit: Bloomberg

Intra-party insurgencies are rarely successful at the presidential level, but can weaken the incumbent. Biden allies set low expectations for his performance in the state, saying write-in campaigns are always challenging. But Phillips had said anything less than 80 per cent would be historically low for an incumbent president seeking reelection.

Biden didn’t campaign in New Hampshire, citing new Democratic party rules that prohibit contests from awarding any delegates before the South Carolina primary February 3. South Carolina helped deliver the Democratic nomination to Biden in 2020, and he supported the move to make the state the first official step in the party’s nomination process.

Phillips, 55, had used Biden’s refusal to play in New Hampshire’s primary to his advantage, campaigning heavily across the state and airing an ad comparing Biden to an elusive Bigfoot-like creature.

Bloomberg

Nashua, New Hampshire: Trump is lacing into Haley as he celebrates his win in the New Hampshire primary.

Unlike his election night speech in Iowa, where he called for unity, Trump is making clear his fury that Haley is not dropping out after finishing second.

US President Donald Trump at his New Hampshire primary party.Credit: Bloomberg

“This is not your typical victory speech, but let’s not have someone take a victory when she had a very bad night,” Trump said, complaining that Haley came in third in Iowa “and she’s still hanging around.”

“I don’t get too angry. I get even,” he told a crowd of supporters packed into a steamy hotel ballroom.

AP

Trump may be unstoppable in the primary campaign, but New Hampshire’s vote offered evidence that he may have a more difficult time in the general election this fall.

Trump did not carry key groups of swing voters. Haley beat Trump among primary voters who identify as moderates, as well as independents. She also beat Trump among those with a college degree. And about half of New Hampshire Republican primary voters are very or somewhat concerned that Trump is too extreme to win the general election, according to AP polling. Only about one-third say the same about Haley.

Donald Trump at a campaign event in New Hampshire.Credit: Matt Rourke/AP

A significant number of voters in the Republican primary – about one-third – also believe that Trump broke the law either in his alleged attempt to interfere in the vote count in the 2020 presidential election, his role in what happened at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, or the classified documents found at his Florida home after he left the White House.

Such legal troubles helped unify core Republican voters behind his candidacy in recent months, but it’s hard to imagine those issues will be an asset with the much broader set of general election voters.

AP

Haley has finished second in New Hampshire to Trump, a setback in her effort to reset the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

The former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor, who invested significant time and financial resources in the state, ramped up her criticism of Trump after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race and she became the sole Republican alternative to him.

Nikki Haley speaks in New Hampshire after finding out she had lost to Donald Trump.Credit: AP

The appeal ultimately failed to resonate with enough voters, and she’s in a weakened position heading into a primary in her home state.

Appearing at her election night party, Haley thanked New Hampshire “for the love, the kindness, the support and a great night”.

Haley congratulated Trump on his victory, saying, “He earned that, and I want to acknowledge that.”

But she said that the race “is far from over”. She vowed to take her “scrappy” campaign onward to South Carolina.

AP, Reuters

US President Joe Biden is dispatching two of his most senior White House advisers to bolster his Delaware-based reelection campaign as his focus shifts to the general election in November.

The moves of his deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon, his 2020 campaign manager, and senior adviser Mike Donilon to the campaign had been expected, and campaign aides insisted it was not signs of a broader shake-up.

US President Joe Biden.Credit: Bloomberg

Though some prominent Democrats had expressed worries about Biden’s operation in Wilmington, campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez is keeping her role. The announcement comes on the same day as the New Hampshire primary, where former President Donald Trump is looking to lock in his path toward the GOP nomination.

“Mike and Jen were essential members of the senior team that helped President Biden and Vice President Harris earn the most votes in American history in 2020, and we’re thrilled to have their leadership and strategic prowess focused full-time on sending them back to the White House for four more years,” said Chavez Rodriguez in a statement.

An aide said the staffing shifts allow the aides, who have been key to managing Biden’s political activities and messaging inside the White House, to take on more overtly political roles on the campaign ahead of an expected campaign against Trump. The campaign said Donilon would focus on advertising and strategy, while O’Malley Dillon would work on organising and the electoral mechanics.

AP

US President Joe Biden has won New Hampshire’s largely symbolic Democratic primary, prevailing in an unusual write-in effort after he refused to campaign or appear on the state ballot.

Biden easily bested two longshot challengers, Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips and self-help author Marianne Williamson, who were on the ballot along with a host of little-known names. His victory in a race he was not formally contesting essentially cements the president’s grasp on the Democratic nomination for a second term.

US President Joe Biden at a reproductive freedom campaign rally at George Mason University in Manassas, Virginia during the New Hampshire primary.Credit: Bloomberg

The New Hampshire race will likely not count toward amassing delegates for the presidential nomination after Democrats in the state bucked a Biden-championed revamp of the primary calendar that placed South Carolina at the fore of the Democratic race for the White House.

Biden championed changing Democratic Party rules to put South Carolina first on February 3, arguing that black Democrats, the party’s most reliable base of support, and other voters of colour needed to play a larger, earlier role in the primary. But Biden also won South Carolina’s primary in 2020, reviving his campaign after a blowout loss in New Hampshire, whose electorate is whiter and older than the rest of the nation.

New Hampshire Democrats rebelled against the new plan and pushed ahead with a primary, alongside the state’s Republicans. The Democratic National Committee has said that the contest won’t award delegates that ultimately select the nominee as a result of the rules violation.

Biden shunned the primary as a result, but his allies organised hundreds of volunteers to spread the word that New Hampshire Democrats could still write in his name. New Hampshire allows unaffiliated voters to participate in either party’s primary.

AP

Concord, New Hampshire: Donald Trump has defeated former UN ambassador Nikki Haley in the New Hampshire Republican primary, a resounding victory that places him one step closer to returning to the White House.

A week after he dominated the Iowa caucuses, Trump has beaten his last remaining rival in a move that many political experts believe all but guarantees he will secure the Republican presidential nomination.

Donald Trump takes a photo with a supporter at a campaign stop in Londonderry, New Hampshire.Credit: AP

The victory is a significant blow for 52-year-old Haley, a two-term former South Carolina governor who had pitched herself as a “new generation” conservative leader who could put an end to the “chaos” of the past few years.

But in a speech after the result, she declared that she would continue to fight Trump in other primaries starting with her home state next month – and noting that “most Americans do not want a rematch between Biden and Trump”.

“Our country is in a real mess and the question is who’s going to fix it?” Haley said at her campaign watch party in Concord, New Hampshire’s capital.

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

The result cements Trump’s control over the party, despite having 91 criminal charges against him. He will now move on to the Nevada primaries, which he is set to win, and then to South Carolina in late February, where he is currently ahead in the polls.

Read North America correspondent Farrah Tomazin’s full report here.

President Joe Biden has condemned abortion bans that have increasingly endangered the health of pregnant women, forcing them to grow sicker before they can receive medical care – and he laid the blame on Donald Trump, his likely Republican challenger in this year’s election.

“He’s betting we won’t hold him responsible,” Biden said to a crowd of hundreds of cheering supporters. “He’s betting you’re going to stop caring.”

“But guess what?” he added. “I’m betting he’s wrong. I’m betting you won’t forget.”

US President Joe Biden at a reproductive freedom campaign rally at George Mason University in Manassas, Virginia.Credit: Bloomberg

The rally with Vice President Kamala Harris came on the same day as the New Hampshire primary, where Trump aims to tighten his grip on his party’s presidential nomination, and it demonstrated how Democrats hope to harness enduring anger over abortion restrictions to blunt his comeback bid.

Roe v. Wade was overturned by the US Supreme Court less than two years ago in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organisation, a decision enabled by three conservative justices appointed by Trump.

“The person most responsible for taking away this freedom in America is Donald Trump,” he said.

The speech was Biden’s bluntest yet on abortion and the status of reproductive health, but it was disrupted several times by protests over Israel’s war in Gaza. One person shouted “shame on you!”

Protesters interrupt US President Joe Biden.Credit: Bloomberg

“This is going to go on for a while; they got this planned,” the Democratic president said as the protestors were escorted out one by one.

Biden and Harris were joined by their spouses, first lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff, at Monday’s rally. It’s the first time the four of them have appeared together since the campaign began, a reflection of the importance that Democrats are putting on abortion this year.

AP

Alex Prevost, 17, was in Salem attending a Nikki Haley rally the night before polls opened. He had canvassed for the former UN ambassador as part of a program overseen by Mamaroneck High School in New York, which allows students to experience political campaigning first hand.

Alex Prevost, 17, was in Salem, New Hampshire, attending a Nikki Haley rally the night before polls opened.Credit: Farrah Tomazin

He said a lot of the voters he had spoken to were Trump fans who liked the former president because he could “get things done” but in Prevost’s view, “chaos definitely follows Trump, and sometimes he looks for chaos”.

“He’s very good at what he does, but he’s personally not for me,” he said.

“We need a new face,” he adds, when asked why he supports Haley. “I feel like the politicians we have are older in age, and having a new perspective is needed.

“As a young person I want a government that represents me. I feel like that’s something that’s overlooked a lot.”