Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden are the projected winners of New Hampshire’s presidential primaries, increasing the odds of a rematch in November.
As the final polls closed at 8 p.m. ET, NBC News projected that Biden would win New Hampshire’s Democratic primary, while Trump was ahead on the GOP side but it was too early to call. A few minutes later, NBC News projected that the former president would defeat Nikki Haley in the Granite State’s Republican primary.
Haley, the former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor, was hoping to capitalize after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ sudden exit from the race. But after strong showings in Iowa and now New Hampshire, Trump remains the heavy front-runner in his bid for a third straight GOP presidential nomination.
What to know
- At stake for the GOP in New Hampshire: 22 delegates at the Republican National Convention.
- After New Hampshire declined to go along with the Democratic National Committee’s attempt to reshuffle the primary calendar, the party said that the state’s 10 convention delegates would be not be awarded in Tuesday’s voting. Biden’s name wasn’t on the ballot, but write-in votes propelled him to victory.
- The next action on the presidential primary calendar for Republicans will be on Feb. 8, when Nevada and the Virgin Islands are holding caucuses, and then on Feb. 24, when South Carolina will hold its GOP primary. Democrats will vote in South Carolina on Feb. 3 and then in Nevada three days later.
We all know what happens next. We still need to let it play out.
The early calls in the first two elections of 2024 have in a sense seemed to bolster one of Trump’s most autocratic boasts. He has said repeatedly that we should really just skip the voting and declare him the Republican nominee, given how obvious his lead has been in the polls. And when the results are a foregone conclusion, as they have been in Iowa and New Hampshire, it can feel as though we’re just spinning our wheels trying to pretend that there’s any kind of suspense or drama that might alter the course of the race.
Despite that, it’s still important that the GOP race continue on while there’s more than one candidate willing to spend the time and energy trying to win votes. Haley isn’t going to be the nominee, barring, as the hosts tonight have joked repeatedly, some event on the scale of the Rapture that leaves the GOP needing an alternate candidate.
But until she suspends her campaign, the gears of democracy need to keep turning. For as long at there is a choice presented to voters, there is no coronation available to Trump, save that which is won at the ballot box.
The road ahead in 2024
Tonight the general election effectively kicked off. The two candidates seem like they will be the same ones as in our last presidential election. But it would be a mistake to assume that this election will play out the same way the previous one did — including a Biden victory.
Biden’s popularity has declined since 2020. This time around, he has a serious presidential policy record to run on, which makes him more trustworthy to certain segments of the electorate while, in the eyes of others, serving as the prime case against him. Within the Democratic Party, voters are split on whether Biden did enough to tackle the social issues he set out to solve, and over the U.S. support of Israel as it dominates Gaza. Among independents, some voters probably have mixed or unclear feelings about Biden’s stewardship of the economy compared with Trump’s.
As far as Trump’s threat to democracy, it’s possible that it has grown more abstract in the eyes of many — most voters are not political junkies, and many may not reflect often on what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. The only thing clear right now is that taking a Biden win for granted is the surest bet the Democrats will lose.
The biggest question for Trump and Biden now
Steve Kornacki speaking on MSNBC moments ago:
In modern history, how many former presidents have turned around four years after losing the office, and tried to reclaim it? In modern history, the answer is zero.
The closest parallel we have is Gerald Ford explored running for president in 1979 after losing in 1976. He was an unelected president. He was polling second place in the fall of 1979 to Ronald Reagan. Ford saw the polls and didn’t run. That’s your closest parallel.
We’re in a very different place. I think one of the things we’ve seen pretty consistently here is I think a lot of people have already been looking at this as an inevitable Trump vs. Biden race. That is why opinion on both of them is so strong and, in my view, is so set in place.
There are up-for-grab voters, there are swing voters, there are potential voters — are they actually going to be motivated to turn out? I think that’s going to be one of the biggest questions as we head into the fall.
These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.
Was it delusional to think Trump could be replaced? I’m not so sure.
As Chris Hayes wrote tonight for MSNBC:
“Trump has looked like the de facto nominee for so long that political junkies and neophytes alike might be forgiven for viewing the aspirations of replacing him as the leader of the Republican Party as delusional.
But I’m not quite so sure. We know Trump was politically weakened by the disastrous performance of his handpicked candidates in the 2022 midterms. He was even losing in some head-to-head polling with Ron DeSantis at one point.
In the end, there are lots of reasons why we’ve ended up with Trump back in a position of party dominance. The indictments that perversely enabled a kind of martyrdom irresistible to the GOP base and DeSantis’ utter lack of charisma and cringey, ham-fisted campaign both had a lot to do with it. But fundamentally, the reason Trump won is that you can’t beat something with nothing, and the non-Trump wing of the Republican Party still hasn’t come up with something to offer.”
Biden gives an exclusive statement to MSNBC
The president just provided MSNBC with an exclusive statement:
“It is now clear that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. And my message to the country is the stakes could not be higher. Our Democracy. Our personal freedoms — from the right to choose to the right to vote. Our economy — which has seen the strongest recovery in the world since COVID. All are at stake.
“I want to thank all those who wrote my name in this evening in New Hampshire. It was a historic demonstration of commitment to our democratic process. And I want to say to all those Independents and Republicans who share our commitment to core values of our nation — our Democracy, our personal freedoms, an economy that gives everyone a fair shot — to join us as Americans.
“Let’s remember. We are the United States of America. And there is nothing — nothing — we can’t do if we do it together.”
The president is right: The general election has begun. Now the pressure is on for Biden to develop a clear and compelling vision for 2024 that will not only win over independents but also motivate a Democratic base that is divided over his policy accomplishments and can’t be taken for granted. Given Biden’s numbers in the polls, it’s extremely risky for him to rely on fear of Trump alone to get the job done.
What is Haley walking out of New Hampshire with?
Steve Kornacki speaking on MSNBC moments ago:
It’s very plausible that Donald Trump will end up winning the state by double digits. When Nikki Haley took the stage earlier ... we were looking at that exit poll and it looked like this might be a 5-, 6-point race and she’d go and make some noise. If this ends up 10, 11, 12 points for Donald Trump, and he’s winning essentially three-quarters of the Republican vote and she’s only getting 25% of the Republican vote, what is she walking out of this state with tonight to go be competitive in any other state? ... It’s very hard to find other places where she could where she could actually post a win based off this, if it ends up being double digits.
These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.
Team Biden is focusing on Team Trump
Jen Psaki speaking on MSNBC moments ago:
There are statements flying out from the Biden team tonight — and none of them have anything to do with the outcome in New Hampshire. I’m sure they’re relieved with what the outcome was on some level, but they’re ready to move forward, basically. ...
Whether Nikki Haley is staying in or not, they are moving on to the race against Donald Trump. And let me read you just two of the key sentences that stuck out to me. The first is: “Tonight’s results all but confirm that Trump has locked up the GOP nomination. And the election-denying, anti-freedom MAGA movement has completed its takeover of the Republican Party.” Lots of messaging in there obviously, but they’re saying “we’re running against him.” The last line of the statement is: “One thing is increasingly clear today, Donald Trump is headed straight into a general election matchup where he’ll face the only person who has ever beaten him at the ballot box: Joe Biden.”
So the race is on for them. They’re moving to the general election, whether Nikki Haley stays in or not.
These comments have been slightly edited for length and clarity.
Dean Phillips had one job
Rep. Dean Phillips and his allies spent close to $5 million on his efforts to give Biden a run for his money in New Hampshire. The Minnesota Democrat and his well-heeled supporters hoped that a surprisingly strong performance in the Granite State — which Phillips devoted tremendous attention to in the run-up to the contest — could spark nationwide attention and kick off a competitive Democratic primary.
It was always an extremely far-fetched theory of launching a major challenge against Biden, and it has failed. The president wasn’t even on the ballot, but due to overwhelming write-in ballots he’s not only the projected winner, he’s also currently thrashing the congressman in the vote count. (And Phillips has virtually no nationwide recognition.)
It’s certainly not a bad thing for the president to face primary challenges, but in Phillips’ case, it has never been clear why exactly he was running and how he came to the conclusion that he was the answer to Biden’s supposed “electability” problem. The Democrats — and America — would have benefited from a serious challenge to Biden. This wasn’t it.
Nancy Pelosi: Let’s get on with it
House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi joined MSNBC in the 9 p.m. ET hour to make her case for Biden.
“We have to get out there and get the job done,” she urged, arguing that it was time to focus on the general election and the consequences of Trump’s policies. “Listen when he speaks,” she said. “Make sure you know how you are affected by some of what he says ... whether it’s guns, whether it’s climate, whether it’s a woman’s right to choose, whether it’s health care.”
The next few months will be about Democrats’ “message, mobilization and money,” Pelosi noted, before praising Biden’s policy accomplishments and fundraising abilities.
Trump’s lies are a form of reality bullying
Rachel Maddow speaking on MSNBC moments ago:
Let’s be really clear about this: Trump saying tonight, after having won the New Hampshire primary (which he’s done twice before), having then gone on to say that’s not enough, you can’t just claim credit, you have to falsify the election results in the two times that you lost the state. It’s a form of reality bullying, and he’s done this around Iowa as well. For example, he doesn’t have bragging rights about winning the Iowa caucuses. He lost the Iowa caucuses in 2016 to Ted Cruz. But after winning the Iowa caucuses this time, he said: “Oh, it’s really great to have won it three times in a row.” And he knows that it’s not true, and he knows that everybody listening to him knows that it isn’t true.
It’s like his insistence on the date of the Spanish flu epidemic, or his insistence on what the hurricane track was going to be that he had to draw it in with the Sharpie. It’s an exercise in bending reality to his will and insisting that others follow. It’s an exercise in making people who love him, denounce reality and endorse his view instead as a form of fealty, as a form of loyalty. And it’s a way of breaking the truth in this country, and showing that his most loyal people will do that in a performative and effacing way.
These comments have been edited for length and clarity.