Strong showing by Indian American Nikki Haley even as Trump wins New Hampshire GOP poll

Washington: Former US President Donald Trump is projected to win the New Hampshire primary, despite a stronger than expected performance by Indian American Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, thus making the former White House occupant all but certain of earning the party’s nominee for the November presidential elections against the Democratic incumbent Joe Biden.

Major American media outlets called the Republican primary race in favour of Trump with one-fourth of the votes being counted. Trump was leading with 52.5 per cent of the votes counted and Haley 46.6 per cent. Haley, political pundits said performed much better than expected. She is the only Republican left in the race standing against the mighty Trump.

By winning the New Hampshire primary after the Iowa Caucus, Trump has made the strongest ever case to be the Republican party’s nominee for the November presidential elections. Notably, Trump is the first non-incumbent Republican presidential candidate to win both the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary back-to-back.

Trump is the only Republican candidate to have won the New Hampshire primary thrice. “This is a decisive win for Donald Trump tonight,” former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy told Fox News in an interview with 20 per cent of the votes being called. He said that Haley withdrawing from the race in favour of Trump would be the right thing for the former South Carolina Governor.

In a statement, the Trump campaign asked Haley to drop out of the race. Haley does not have a path to victory. Instead, if Haley stays in the race, she will play an active role in advancing the re-election of Harris-Biden, it said.

“Nikki Haley said she’s running to stop the re-election of Harris-Biden. Yet, without a viable path to victory, every day she stays in this race is another day she delivers to the Harris-Biden campaign,” said Taylor Budowich, CEO of Make America Great Again Inc. “It’s time for unity, it’s time to take the fight to the Democrats, and for Nikki Haley: it’s time to drop out,” Budowich said.

But Haley appeared to be determined to be in the race. “What a great night, God is so good,” she told her supporters at Concord in New Hampshire. “I want to congratulate Donald Trump on his victory tonight. He earned it. And I want to acknowledge that. Now you've all heard the chatter among the political class they're falling all over themselves saying this race is over,” she said.

“Well, I have news for New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last. This race is far from over. There are dozens of states left,” Haley said asserting that in New Hampshire she got almost half of the votes.

Haley said when she started, there were 14 of them in the race and she was polling at two per cent in the polls. “Well, I'm a fighter. And now we're the last one standing next to Donald Trump,” Haley said. “A Trump nomination is a Biden win, and a Kamala Harris presidency,” she said.