LONDONDERRY, N.H. — You can feel the difference between a Nikki Haley town hall held in July and one in January.
A presidential rally with the former U.N. Ambassador in July, according to independent Granite State voter Marie Mulroy, felt like an underdog show. A half-attended longshot bid at a Washington D.C. side job or perhaps a tryout for the vice presidency.
A packed, standing-room-only event at Game Changer Sports Bar and Grill held Wednesday was something else entirely, she said.
“Things are different. This is different. She’s going for gold. She’s so close to victory she can smell it,” Mulroy told the Herald.
The crowd is one example, she pointed out. When she first took a seat in the back of the restaurant’s large dining area, Mulroy was one of a few dozen people waiting to hear the former South Carolina governor speak. She had enough room to dance in place to the house music.
By the time Haley took the stage, the Manchester resident was fighting for elbow room among hundreds of other voters, most forced to stand hip-to-hip for the hour or so that Haley spent speaking.
Many of the audience members had never been to a Haley rally before, as they indicated to the candidate by a show of hands when asked. Mulroy said she’s been to about nine of Haley’s events, and that she’s seen all of the Republican candidates this cycle.
Another difference from this summer to this winter, Mulroy said, is the candidate’s focus. Whereas before she seemed hesitant to even speak his name — less she offend the MAGA faithful, Mulroy guessed — now Haley is directly going after her former boss.
“Where the money goes, the energy flows, and she’s starting to see a ton of money coming into her campaign. So now she’s got the confidence to know she can take on Trump,” Mulroy said. “A lot of these people here were Trump supporters who are now in her camp.”
Haley made three stops in New Hampshire on Wednesday, following a town hall held at the Wentworth by the Sea Country Club Rye Tuesday night. At each of those stops, she was brought to the stage by the state’s Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who endorsed Haley’s White House run in mid-December.
Crowds seemed receptive to the former ambassador’s well-practiced stump speech at each event, nodding and applauding at times. She took time to shake hands with voters after speaking and stopped for a few selfies.
She answered a few audience questions in Kingston, at the Saddle Up Saloon, but went without while in Londonderry. She was scheduled to be in Milford Wednesday evening for another town hall style event.
Mulroy is correct in her assertion that Haley has finally turned her attention to former President Donald Trump, who despite leading her and every other Republican candidate in polling, has gone mostly without address by most prospective nominees — former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie being the lone very outspoken exception — for the length of the primary cycle.
Now that Trump is running anti-Haley ads, she’s noticed that he notices her, she said.
“So President Trump is showing me some attention these days,” she said with a smile and to audience laughter. “I gotta say: I love it. That means he sees what we see. But, literally, these temper tantrums he’s having, these commercials that I’m seeing and that you’re watching, everyone of them is a lie,” she said.
Mulroy is also correct when she says Haley is pulling in quite a bit of money. In addition to November’s announcement by Americans for Prosperity Action, a Charles and David Koch-founded super PAC, that they would be supporting her primary bid, on Wednesday, her campaign announced they had pulled in $24 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, twice the previous quarter’s haul.
She’ll need the money if she hopes to do better than second place in the Republican Primary. Polling recently touted by her campaign shows she could be as close as 3 points away from Trump in New Hampshire, but shows her about 50 points behind him nationally.
The New Hampshire Primary election will be held on January 23.
The Granite State’s Democratic Party responded to Haley’s visit by reminding voters she supported retired Brig. Gen Don Bolduc’s recent senate run, despite the general’s endorsement of former President Trump’s false assertions that the 2020 election was somehow rigged or stolen from the 45th President.
“Haley is so desperate to bow to the extreme MAGA base that she’ll align herself with people who endanger America’s democracy, going as far as praising the Trump administration less than a month after the deadly riot at the Capitol. Granite Staters know the stakes are higher than ever for the future of democracy this year and will soundly reject MAGA extremists like Haley at the ballot box,” they said in a statement.
