The Fat Lady Is Singing and 5 Other Takeaways from the New Hampshire Primary
Former President Donald Trump prevailed over Nikki Haley in New Hampshire’s Republican presidential primary on Tuesday.
Trump defeated the former South Carolina governor by a comfortable margin, 54.3 percent to 43.2 percent.
As always, Tuesday’s developments have sent legions of political observers racing to explain their meaning and significance. With that in mind, here are six takeaways from the New Hampshire primary:
1. “The Fat Lady”
Wednesday morning on X, David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network used a familiar colloquialism to describe the state of the Republican primary race post-New Hampshire.
“The Fat Lady is Singing,” Brody’s post began.
Brody then listed eight reasons why Trump’s victory in New Hampshire effectively ended the GOP primary.
In sum, a comparatively liberal New Hampshire electorate favored Haley, and she “invested heavily” there. Despite the most advantageous circumstances imaginable for a Trump opponent, however, she lost by double digits.
“When you win both Iowa AND New Hampshire (two states made up of two totally different kinds of voters), that’s called DOMINANCE,” Brody wrote.
The Fat Lady is Singing: a thread.
President Trump’s victory in New Hampshire was actually even MORE impressive than his 30 point win in Iowa. Let us count the ways. Despite the fact that:1) More than half of primary voters were NOT republicans
2) The electorate was more… pic.twitter.com/90UpX3hrCD— David Brody (@DBrodyReports) January 24, 2024
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri echoed that general sentiment and explained New Hampshire’s meaning for a party eager to defeat President Joe Biden.
“Trump is the clear winner. Time to stop fighting each other and unite to beat Biden,” Hawley said.
Trump is the clear winner. Time to stop fighting each other and unite to beat Biden
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 24, 2024
Indeed, even Trump’s enemies could not foresee a competitive GOP race after New Hampshire.
“It looks all but over,” The Washington Post declared. The Associated Press called Trump’s apparent road to the nomination a “glide path.”
Elsewhere, Trump’s record-setting vote totals left MSBNC liberals confused and characteristically hysterical.
The former president stands to fare even better going forward. According to Real Clear Polling, Trump holds a gargantuan 55-point lead over Haley nationwide.
Thus, without an untapped and meaningful group of potential voters, Haley lacks a plausible path forward.
2. The GOP’s Justin Trudeau
Despite lacking a path to victory, Haley pledged to remain in the race and even sounded delusional about her chances.
She delivered a post-primary speech reminiscent of something tyrannical Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau might say. She not only lied but spoke the opposite of the truth.
In an interview with The Telegraph last year, popular conservative psychologist Jordan Peterson gave a diagnosis of his home country’s prime minister.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say a true word,” Peterson said.
“I’ve met people, in my clinical practice and otherwise, who were temperamentally incapable of any gesture or any word that was actually genuine, and that’s a consequence of long practice,” he added.
Peterson’s words apply equally to Haley.
Consider, for instance, her comments after the primary on Tuesday.
“Now, you’ve all heard the chatter among the political class. They’re falling all over themselves saying this race is over,” Haley told her supporters. “Well, I have news for all of them. New Hampshire is first in the nation; it is not the last in the nation. This race is far from over.”
The former governor posted a clip of her speech on X and hilariously depicted herself as a political outsider.
“I’ve got bad news for the political establishment: I’m not going anywhere,” Haley wrote in part.
I’ve got bad news for the political establishment: I’m not going anywhere…except to my sweet South Carolina. We’re not going to let them coronate Donald Trump when 48 states haven’t voted. #BringIt pic.twitter.com/lNfVjjL0E9
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) January 24, 2024
Haley, of course, remains in the race only because she has the establishment’s backing.
She supports nearly every globalist position, including endless wars. And, as she showed this month, she has no qualms about disingenuously playing the insidious race card.
Furthermore, when confronted last month with a simple question about the cause of the Civil War, she delivered the sort of incoherent response that a person gives when trying to gauge and then satisfy a questioner’s expectations rather than give an honest answer.
In short, if Haley can depict herself as a political outsider, then she can say anything.
3. “The Ugly Underbelly”
Appearing with Trump and various fellow supporters of the former president on stage after Tuesday’s primary victory, former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy explained the meaning of Haley’s decision to remain in the race.
“What we see right now with her continuing in this race is the ugly underbelly of American politics, where the mega-donors are trying to do one thing when we the people say another,” Ramaswamy declared.
He then argued that the Haley strategy involves staying in the race long enough for sinister actors to eliminate Trump, referring in particular to the deep state’s ongoing legal warfare against the former president.
Young @VivekGRamaswamy: “What we saw tonight was America First defeating America Last”
So true! MAGA!
— Alex Bruesewitz 🇺🇸 (@alexbruesewitz) January 24, 2024
Ramaswamy was not alone in noticing Haley’s unusual and potentially nefarious strategy.
“She’s not interested in even trying to win votes. She’s got something else going on,” conservative commentator Steve Hilton said on Fox News.
.@SteveHiltonx: “Nikki Haley’s speech—stunningly bad judgment… it makes me think, actually, she knows she’s going to lose. She’s not interested in even trying to win votes. She’s got something else going on.” pic.twitter.com/wlqdFE6Kjf
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) January 24, 2024
Conservative commentator Lara Logan also observed that shadowy figures appear to be pulling Haley’s strings.
“Nikki’s puppet masters seem to be counting on Trump being convicted and locked up. Why else would she stay in a race she has already lost…” Logan posted on X.
One hopes that Haley’s decision to remain in the race sprang from nobler motives. But the evidence paints an ugly picture.
4. A General Election Preview?
New Hampshire’s open primary allows undeclared voters, i.e. independents, to choose either major party’s candidate. To do this, voters simply choose either a Democratic or Republican ballot.
Furthermore, as long as they changed their party affiliation to “undeclared” before the Oct. 6 deadline, even longtime registered Democrats had the option to vote in the state’s GOP primary.
That meant, of course, that thousands of non-Republicans helped determine the primary’s outcome. And while they did not alter the results, they certainly turned out for their preferred candidate.
According to CNN exit polling, 7 in 10 Haley voters said they were “registered as undeclared prior to Tuesday.” Likewise, an NBC News exit poll showed that half of New Hampshire’s entire GOP primary electorate consisted of non-Republicans.
Furthermore, Monday’s primary smashed New Hampshire’s turnout record, according to The New York Times.
In short, decisive victory in a high-turnout primary election filled with moderate and independent voters could bode well for Trump’s chances in the general election.
5. Endorsements Ring Hollow
In November, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa endorsed DeSantis. Last month, Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire endorsed Haley.
Neither endorsement made any difference.
In fact, given the GOP electorate’s contempt for establishment politicians, those endorsements probably motivated an already galvanized pro-Trump base.
“Trump literally beat the governor of New Hampshire in New Hampshire, and the governor of Iowa in Iowa. You can’t beat this guy,” conservative commentator Ryan Fournier posted on X.
Trump literally beat the governor of New Hampshire in New Hampshire, and the governor of Iowa in Iowa.
You can’t beat this guy.
— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) January 24, 2024
6. What Might Have Been
The Democrats also held a primary election in New Hampshire.
Biden did not appear on the ballot but nonetheless prevailed as a write-in candidate with 60.9 percent of the vote. Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota finished a distant second at 19.5 percent.
As Phillips has lamented, the Democratic Party protected the incumbent president, denying New Hampshire Democrats a meaningful primary and effectively disenfranchising them by refusing to count the state’s delegates toward the party’s presidential nomination.
But oh, what might have been?
The latest Real Clear Polling average of polls in a three-way presidential race between Trump, Biden and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. showed the latter at 19.3 percent.
In October, after encountering the same kinds of obstacles that beset Phillips, RFK Jr. chose to leave the Democratic Party and campaign for the presidency as an independent.
Imagine, therefore, if RFK Jr. had remained in the race on the Democratic side. What kind of vote totals might he have posted in New Hampshire, part of his famous family’s home region?
A 19.3 percent showing in national polls suggests at the very least that he might have earned substantial support.
In that case, one can imagine the narrative on the Democratic side. We would almost certainly be seeing the establishment media circle the wagons around the bumbling and tyrannical president.
Alas, RFK Jr.’s independent run deprived us of that spectacle for the time being.
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