CONCORD, N.H. — Nikki Haley vowed to keep running for the Republican nomination Tuesday, saying that she would not drop out of the race despite losing soundly to former President Donald Trump in the New Hampshire primary.
Haley, Trump’s last remaining major GOP rival, conceded quickly in New Hampshire, but doubled down on comments she made earlier in the day, that the race was “not over,” while addressing the perception that the party’s nomination would effectively be decided by her performance in the Granite State.
“Now you’ve all heard the chatter among the political class,” Haley said, addressing supporters at her Concord watch party after the race was called. “They’re falling all over themselves saying this race is over. Well I have news for all of them.
“New Hampshire is the first in the nation. It’s not the last in the nation. This race is far from over,” she said.
The former South Carolina governor plans to travel to her home state on Wednesday, “fresh off the New Hampshire primary,” a campaign advisory states, where she will host a rally “to officially kick off her swing in the Palmetto State leading up to next month’s first-in-the-south primary.”
Haley’s campaign had already released a memo Tuesday morning emphasizing her intention to stay in the race until at least March 5, for the 16 Super Tuesday primaries, a commitment the former U.N. ambassador under Trump repeated in her remarks at the Grappone Conference Center.
“Our fight is not over because we have a country to save,” Haley said.
In the memo, Haley’s campaign manager, Betsy Ankney, pointed to unattributed statistics that showed “50% of Republican primary voters want an alternative to Donald Trump,” and “75% of the country wants an option other than Donald Trump and Joe Biden.”
Haley seemingly pointed to past polling at her watch party, saying that Trump is the “only Republican in the country” that Biden would be able to defeat in November, while adding that she has been shown to “defeat Biden handily.”
She also stated that she overcame her prior underdog status while running for elected office in South Carolina, and repeated much of what was said in the earlier memo — which insisted there will not be a clear picture of where the race stands until after Super Tuesday, by which time 26 states and territories will have voted.
That memo also takes a shot at the ages of both Trump and President Biden, saying that both are “80-year-old” men “consumed by vendettas and confused by basic names and facts,” while urging voters to see Haley as a “new generation of leadership with the strength and competence to get the job done.”
