NASHUA, New Hampshire — Former President Donald Trump was in a celebratory mood as New Hampshire results showed him leading former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, saying it’s time for the party to unify behind him.
Trump handily defeated Haley on Tuesday night, with news outlets calling the race in the former president’s favor just minutes after the last polls closed at 8 p.m. Trump currently leads Haley 54.0% to 44.5% now with 51% of the vote tallied.
The victory also serves as a historic win, as the former president became the first nonincumbent Republican candidate to win both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
Trump took a jab at Haley’s performance in New Hampshire, mocking the former South Carolina governor for taking a “victory lap” in her speech despite having a “very bad night.”
“Who the hell was the imposter that went up on the stage before and, like, claimed a victory? She did very poorly,” Trump said. “She failed badly.”
With entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) all dropping out, Trump and Haley saw their polling numbers rise in recent weeks. Haley went from drawing below 20% support in the RealClearPolitics average in early December to polling at 36.3% on primary day.
But Trump’s polling surged as well, surpassing 50% on Sunday and reaching 53.9% Tuesday. While she tried to temper expectations by saying she wouldn’t need to win to stay in the race, Trump said the Granite State result shows that he’s going to be the nominee.
Speaking for nearly 20 minutes, Trump again pointed to his substantial lead in the polls, mocking Haley for attempting to position herself as being on a winning trajectory in Iowa and New Hampshire.
“She’s doing a speech like she won. She didn’t win, she lost,” Trump said. “And you know, last week we had a little bit of a problem — and if you remember, Ron [DeSantis] was very upset because she ran up and she pretended she won Iowa. And I looked around and I said, ‘Didn’t she come in third?’”
Instead, Trump and his allies called on the Republican Party to unite and coalesce around Trump, whom many have declared the presumptive nominee.
However, Haley’s campaign says she’s not buying the unity message if it means Trump gets the nod without being tested.
“The political class and the media want to give Donald Trump a coronation. They say the race is over. They want to throw up their hands, after only 110,000 people have voted in a caucus in Iowa, and say, well, I guess it’s Trump,” Haley’s campaign said in a memo released just hours before polls closed in the Granite State. “And while members of Congress, the press, and many of the weak-kneed fellas who ran for president are giving up and giving in — we aren’t going anywhere.”
Earlier in the day, Trump had predicted a “big loss” for Haley and predicted the race’s head-to-head status would “hurt her.”
Still, Haley is likely to remain a thorn in Trump’s side as she refuses to drop her presidential bid and vows to stay in contention for the long haul, even looking ahead to primary contests on Super Tuesday in early March.
“New Hampshire is the first in the nation; it is not the last in the nation,” Haley told supporters on Tuesday. “This race is far from over; there are dozens of states left to go.”
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Trump finished his remarks by leaving a warning to his supporters that if he isn’t reelected, “our country is finished.”
“We have an opportunity to do something so amazing,” Trump said. “The reason we have support is because [Democrats] are so bad at what they’re doing and so evil, and they’re destroying our country.”
