Trump sets sights on battling Haley in New Hampshire
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Former President Donald Trump coasted to a strong victory in Monday’s Iowa caucuses which, despite depressed turnout amid brutal weather, saw him embraced by a majority of the state’s Republican base.
Now he’s gearing up to battle directly with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in New Hampshire, looking to quash what appears to be her best hope at beating him in his quest for a third straight presidential nomination, sources in Trump’s orbit told ABC News, offering a glimpse into his immediate next moves on the trail.
“The game plan is always to win. And whether it’s ‘scorched earth’ or highlight the major deficiencies in her record, that’s what we can expect the next week,” said one former campaign official who remains in touch with Trump’s current team and who asked not to be named to share internal discussions.
“Donald Trump has a chance of ending this race and putting the final nail in the coffin of this presidential primary in New Hampshire,” the former official said. “He’s not one to leave artillery in the gun.”
Monday night’s results saw Trump clinch a thorough victory in Iowa, taking more than 50% of the vote and winning every county except for one.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Haley, who were separated by only a couple of points for second and third place, respectively, ultimately trailed Trump by about 30% each despite months of pitching themselves as better alternatives to win the White House.
Allies of DeSantis and Haley were quick to note the results came out of just one state at the start of the 2024 race (though it is one state that receives outsized attention) and arguably few voters were making their voices heard.
Around 110,000 people voted in the Republican caucuses, which was about 60% of the turnout in the last contested caucuses, in 2016.
And even as the vote totals and entrance polls suggested Trump continues to have problems with more moderate and younger voters and in more educated and less rural areas, his win showed that the base of the party remains with him.
Trump is favored to win upcoming primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina, but both states offer different quirks that theoretically provide openings for Haley on a narrow path toward competing with him through the rest of the primary season, observers and experts said.
Independents and people registered as undeclared — who typically lean more moderate — are allowed to vote in New Hampshire’s primary and South Carolina, where Trump has a 30-point edge in 538’s polling average, is seen as potentially more hospitable to Haley than Iowa, given her existing connection to voters as a former governor there.
Trump and Haley have already engaged in tit-for-tat attacks, with Trump casting aspersions on Haley’s intelligence and labeling her a “globalist” and the South Carolinian depicting the former president as an agent of “chaos” — while still saying she would pardon him if she’s elected and he’s convicted of a crime (he denies wrongdoing) and declining to rule out if she’d be his running mate.
