Former US President Donald Trump is on track to score another landmark victory in the race for the Republican Party's presidential nomination for the November election. According to polls, he has a significant lead in the party elections held on Tuesday in New Hampshire, a state in the north-east of the US.
The election comes two days after one of Trump's rivals in the race for the nomination, Florida Governor Ron Desantis, dropped out of the race and endorsed the former president. It could be an additional boost for Trump both in New Hampshire and in the overall race.
Desantis did not live up to expectations that he could be a serious opponent to Trump. After ending his campaign on Sunday, the race for the Republican nomination has only two front-runners - Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
According to a CNN poll released Sunday, 50 percent of likely voters in New Hampshire would vote for Trump, 39 percent for Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations, and XNUMX percent for Desantis. Those results are similar to recent surveys by other media organizations.
Trump won the Iowa caucuses last Sunday by a landslide, with more than 50 percent of the vote, twice as many as DeSantis and Haley.
Trump and Haley, who served as ambassador during his tenure, traded accusations over the weekend as Desantis visited South Carolina and then New Hampshire before wrapping up his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
The former president also tried to weaken Haley's position over the weekend in his native South Carolina, even though that state's primary is more than a month away.
A number of South Carolina officials, who have supported Trump, traveled to New Hampshire - more than 1.300 miles away - to speak at his rally.
"To the people of New Hampshire, I say: All you need to know about Nikki Haley is that every globalist, liberal, Biden supporter, and member of the Trump Never movement is on her side — and almost every leader in her South Carolina is on mine. We've got almost everything ", Trump told supporters at the rally.
Trump also suggested that Haley, who was born in America to Indian immigrant parents, was not American enough. On his network, he often referred to her as "Nimbra", deliberately misspelling her full name, Nimarata Niki Randhava. When she married Michael Haley 26 years ago, the former ambassador to the UN took his last name.
Trump is trying to win another presidential term after losing to Joe Biden in 2020. Polls show both are favorites to win their parties' nominations, although many voters say they don't want a repeat of the presidential race four years ago. However, it now seems inevitable.
Haley claims that Trump's mental faculties are weakening and that neither he nor Biden should lead the country. Trump is 77 years old, and Biden is 81.
In a speech over the weekend, Trump called out Haley four times for the poor security measures at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 when thousands of his supporters stormed the building in an attempt to stop the formal confirmation of Biden's victory.
Trump never corrected the mistake, though he was referring to another political foe, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Haley has never been a member of Congress, and was in South Carolina during the unrest in the Capitol.
"There were several things: He claimed that Joe Biden was going to drag us into World War II. I guess he meant World War III. He said his opponent was President Obama. He was never in the race for President Obama. He said that I I was in charge of security at the Capitol on January 6th. I was nowhere near the Capitol on January 6th. If you have someone in his 80s in office, don't be surprised that his mental stability is failing. It's human nature," Haley said in Sunday.
She asserted that Trump is not at the same level as in 2016, when he won the presidential election.
"I think we're seeing that kind of decline," Haley said.
Can Trump be stopped?
Trump enters the New Hampshire election buoyed by a record victory in Iowa. However, New Hampshire is known for its more moderate political tradition, while voters who are not attached to any party can go to the Republican elections.
Because of the large number of independent voters. New Hampshire is more favorable to Haley than more conservative Iowa. Candidates backed by Trump have not fared well in New Hampshire in recent years.
Haley hopes to use it, especially considering that after the withdrawal of Desantis, she is the main opponent of Trump.
If he wins, the caucus — which Trump currently dominates — could be more competitive. A victory would also give her momentum ahead of the caucuses in South Carolina on February 24.
However, if Trump wins, it could create a sense of inevitability that he will be the Republican presidential nominee for a third consecutive term.
A significant number of Republicans in New Hampshire say they will never support Trump. Without a competitive race for the Democratic presidential nomination, many left-leaning voters might support Haley.
However, that does not change the fact that Republican Party elections are usually decided by Republicans, and it seems that Trump's support in that party is stronger than ever, AP reports.
Democratic race
In New Hampshire, Democrats are also voting for their candidate on Tuesday.
However, President Biden did not register for those elections because that state rejected his request and the decision of the party authorities to hold the first internal party elections in the Democratic Party, instead of in New Hampshire - which was the tradition until now - in South Carolina, because that the state has a more diverse electorate.
However, voters in New Hampshire are allowed to write in the name of a candidate who is not registered to vote, and Biden supporters are campaigning for Democrats to write in the president's name.
The outcome of that race will not affect the number of delegates needed to secure the Democratic presidential nomination. However, a bad result for Biden - even though he is not directly participating in the elections - would be undesirable considering that the current president is trying to strengthen his political position.
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