Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley is projected to place second in the New Hampshire primary, NBC News reports. Her failure to topple former President Donald Trump from his frontrunner position effectively cements his status as the future Republican presidential nominee and ends any realistic hope of her own shot at it.
Everything was riding on New Hampshire for Haley, the only state in the polls where she ever appeared to get close to Trump in the polls.
Everything was riding on New Hampshire for Haley, the only state in the polls where she ever appeared to get close to Trump in the polls. The political terrain in the Granite State was uniquely favorable to her: New Hampshire Republicans are by a number of measures more moderate and secular than the overall Republican electorate — the exact kind of Republican that Haley has outsize appeal to.
If she couldn’t win there, where else can she win?
The polls now suggest that Haley could be on the brink of her being humiliated in her home state, where Trump is leading her by over 30 points according to some polls. And she trails him by a far larger margin in national polls — a bad sign for her Super Tuesday prospects.
Haley might want to stick in the race just in case something unexpected happens to Trump with ongoing legal troubles — some of which could carry a serious sentence — but her chances of winning this outright are growing dimmer by the day.