We can still win in New Hampshire, insists Nikki Haley

Her supporters hope expected record turnout will help dent the large margin of victory polls predict for ­Donald Trump.

Nikki Haley gets to grips with future voter in Concord on Monday. Picture: AFP

Supporters of Nikki Haley are hoping that the record turnout expected for the New Hampshire primary will help to make a dent in the large margin of victory for ­Donald Trump that pollsters have predicted.

The former South Carolina governor is planning to head straight to her home state to start campaigning in its make-or-break primary next month. Polls there give Mr Trump an even bigger lead in what is now a two-horse race for the Republican nomination after the withdrawal of Ron DeSantis on Sunday night. The Florida governor has endorsed Mr Trump, meaning much of his support is likely to go to the former president.

The 538 aggregate of polls on Monday (Tuesday AEDT) put Mr Trump on 50.7 per cent and Ms Haley on 36.7 per cent in the New Hampshire primary to be held on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT). But Judd Gregg, a former New Hampshire governor, said Ms Haley was “going to beat expectations”, adding: “Voters tend to decide late in our state and this election is going to have the highest turnout in a Republican primary ever. I tend to think that bodes well for Haley.

“Polls show 20 per cent undecided. My sense is that if you are going to vote for Trump, you have already decided, but if you’re undecided – that’s the vote Haley is looking at to move her numbers up.”

Speaking at a rally in Exeter, New Hampshire, hours after Mr DeSantis withdrew from the race, Ms Haley acknowledged the loud cheers. “This is what a two-horse race sounds like,” she said.

She addressed the lack of support among officials in her home state, where many state-level politicians, both senators and the governor Henry McMaster, are backing Mr Trump. She said it was because she had been a tough governor. “I vetoed half a billion dollars of their pet projects,” she said.

Donald Trump signs autographs in Laconia, New Hampshire. Picture: AFP

She suggested that Mr Trump was picking up congressional endorsements because members of the House of Representatives and the Senate knew she would give them a hard time if she made it to the White House.

“I don’t want the political elite,” she insisted. “That’s not what I’m looking for. And they honestly aren’t ready for me. Why? Because I keep saying we need to have term limits in Washington.”

Mr Trump repeated his call for Ms Haley to abandon her challenge in the name of party unity at a rally on Monday night featuring several of his former primary rivals on stage, including the biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott and the North Dakota governor Doug Burgum. Mr DeSantis was not expected to join the line-up but Mr Trump wooed him with kind words, for a change, praising him as a “very capable person” and “very gracious” for endorsing him.

The former president continues to brand Ms Haley as a “globalist”, soft on immigration and friendly to Beijing after courting Chinese investment while governor. Last week, he used his Truth Social account to attack Ms Haley, the daughter of immigrants from India, referring to her repeatedly as “Nimbra”; a play on her birth name, Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. She has always gone by her middle name, Nikki, and took her husband’s surname, Haley, when they married in 1996.

Challenged on Sunday about the jibe, Mr Trump said that giving nicknames to his opponents was “a very effective tool” and again cast doubt on Haley’s US citizenship, despite the fact she was born in Bamberg, South Carolina. “It’s just something that came. It’s a little bit of a take-off on her name,” he said.

Ms Haley’s sense of momentum in New Hampshire continued with the endorsement of the Union Leader, the state’s biggest-circulation daily newspaper. “The dinosaurs from the last two administrations have indeed had their shot and Nikki Haley is the fireball from the heavens to wipe them out,” it wrote.

Larry Sabato, a veteran election analyst, said that second place in New Hampshire would probably not be good enough for Ms Haley. That is because the state allows undeclared voters to take part in the Republican primary, expanding the pool to independents who prefer her over Mr Trump. A majority of the 50 US states allow non-Republicans to take part in the party’s primary but Professor Sabato said there was nowhere with a tradition of this quite like New Hampshire, where the biggest group of registered voters are independents.

“Haley needs to win, and even with a substantial win, she only has a very narrow path to be the nominee,” said the professor of politics at the University of Virginia. “I would still bet on Trump, assuming he stays healthy.”

He added: “Republicans always said in 2016 they would have beaten Trump if we just consolidated the anti-Trump vote, which was true. He only got 38 per cent of the vote during the competitive part of the primaries but the others wouldn’t get out. This time there has been consolidation. The thing is, most of the consolidation has helped Trump.”

Ms Haley has a campaign event planned for Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday.

The Times