ROCHESTER, N.H. — By the time former president Donald Trump took the stage in New Hampshire on Sunday night, the race for the Republican nomination had narrowed to just two major candidates.
Hours before the 45th President approached the podium and began speaking to an absolutely packed auditorium, and just days before voters in New Hampshire go to the polls, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he would no longer seek the White House and would instead throw his backing to the former president.
Just as he did with Vivek Ramaswamy after the tech entrepreneur dropped out of presidential consideration, Trump wasted no time in making it clear that DeSantis had kissed the ring.
“I’d like to congratulate Ron DeSantis for running a really great campaign,” Trump said shortly after taking the microphone. “He was very gracious and he endorsed me. I appreciate that. I look forward to working with Ron and everybody else at defeating crooked Joe Biden.”
DeSantis, who just a year ago was thought to be the one candidate who might stand a chance of knocking Trump from his perch atop conservative politics, said that Iowa had made clear who the Republican electorate wanted to pit against President Joe Biden.
“I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee and I will honor that pledge. He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear — a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism — that Nikki Haley represents,” he said.
Trump has maintained a dominant lead in polling since the start of the 2024 primary season and won the Iowa Caucus last week with 51% of votes cast.
According to a University of New Hampshire/CNN survey released Sunday, Haley’s efforts in the Granite State in recent months have paid off somewhat, but not enough to overcome Trump.
“Former President Donald Trump leads former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley by 11 percentage points in New Hampshire’s first in the nation presidential primary. Haley holds a significant lead among undeclared (‘independent’) voters, but this is not likely to lead to a Haley victory as Trump holds a wider lead among registered Republicans. Immigration is the most important issue to GOP primary voters,” UNH pollsters wrote.
According to pollsters, the open nature of the New Hampshire primary — meaning that anyone can pull a Republican ballot — will likely not help the former South Carolina governor overcome the majority of support conservative voters show her former boss.
“It is important to note that no candidate has won their party’s primary without winning the plurality of their party’s registered voters,” UNH Survey Center Director Andrew Smith said. “It will be very difficult for the Haley campaign to convince more undeclared voters to vote in the Republican Primary, and to vote for her, in the remaining days of the campaign.”
Haley, for her part, didn’t have an entirely terrible day, despite the fact that none of her former opponents have bothered to endorse her bid for the White House.
The former diplomat’s campaign announced early Sunday morning that she’d secured the endorsement of the New Hampshire Union Leader, the Granite State’s largest publication.
“Nikki Haley is an opportunity to vote for a candidate rather than against those two. A candidate who can run circles around the dinosaurs from the last two administrations, backwards and in heels,” the paper’s editorial board wrote. “If you can select a Republican ballot on Tuesday, we urge you to select Nikki Haley as your next president. New Hampshire is ready for a change. America is ready for a change. The world is ready for a change. We want a better option than we have had for the past eight years, and Nikki Haley is that option.”
Excepting his acknowledgement he’d added DeSantis to his pocket, the former president’s speech wasn’t much different from others he’s delivered over the last 11 months of flying into the Granite State for rallies and flying out just as quickly.
He railed against the Biden Administration’s record on the economy, the border, the so called green new deal, and the Afghanistan withdrawal.
“The U.S.A. has become a dumping ground,” he said. “They are coming in at levels that have never been seen before.”
He attacked Haley and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu’s endorsement of her. He claimed the 2020 election was rigged, despite the demonstrable fact that it was not. He attacked former House Speaker Paul Ryan and other “Republicans in name only.”
“The Republican party is never going back to a weak, establishment candidate,” he said.
Trump praised the U.S. military, but not its leadership.
“We’re dropping bombs all over the place again,” he said.
Presidents have total and absolute immunity to do as they please while in office, Trump said, but charges against him for crimes he allegedly committed before, during, and after office are “Biden indictments” brought at the 46th president’s direction and amount to “illegal election interference.”
“I have like eight of ’em,” he said. “We have every kind of case you can have.”
“Joe Biden is a threat to democracy,” he said. “They want to silence me because I will never let them silence you. They are not after me, they are after you. I’m just standing in the way.”
A group of protesters were escorted out of the building after one yelled that Trump had “made millions from China.”
“See you outside,” a Trump supporter told the protestors as security led them to the door.
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