Former President Donald Trump and President Biden secured convincing victories in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primaries, both wins evidence that a general election rematch is looking increasingly likely.
Trump’s main Republican opponent, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, had hoped to win enough support from moderate voters in the state for a come-from-behind win, as did Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., who continues to make the case that Biden is too old and unpopular to successfully take on Trump.
From record Republican turnout to intra-party criticism, here are the top five moments from the New Hampshire primaries:
TIM SCOTT SETS CROWD ALIVE WITH ONE-LINER AFTER TRUMP SAYS HE ‘MUST REALLY HATE’ HALEY
Despite her second loss in a row to Trump and polls suggesting the upcoming contests in Nevada and South Carolina, her home state, would produce similar results, Haley vowed to continue campaigning for the Republican nomination.
“New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last in the nation. This race is far from over. There are dozens of states left to go,” Haley told a crowd of supporters gathered at her election watch party in Concord, New Hampshire, after the Fox News Decision Desk called the race for Trump.
“At one point, in this campaign, there were 14 of us running, and we were at 2% in the polls. Well, I’m a fighter, and I’m scrappy. And now we are the last ones standing next to Donald Trump,” she added.
It’s unclear how the loss could affect Haley’s fundraising, an important factor considering the South Carolina primary is a month away on Feb. 24.
HALEY AND PHILLIPS OUTPERFORMED IN NEW HAMPSHIRE BUT IT’S STILL A TRUMP VS. BIDEN HORSE RACE
Her campaign told Fox News Digital ahead of New Hampshire polls closing that it had raised $1.5 million since Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race over the weekend. It is also set to launch a $4 million ad blitz across South Carolina on Wednesday.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman following his victory, Trump said he was “very honored” by the support he received from voters, and declared that the Republican Party was “very united” behind his candidacy.
“I’m very honored by the result,” Trump said, adding that he was “looking forward to going against the worst president in the history of our country” in the general election, referencing Biden.
When asked if he felt Haley would suspend her campaign, he said, “I don’t know. She should.”
“She should because, otherwise, we have to keep wasting money instead of spending on Biden,” Trump said. “If she doesn’t drop out, we have to waste money instead of spending it on Biden, which is our focus.”
“The party is very united except for her,” he added.
Biden won his party’s primary despite failing to file as a candidate in the state last year, but did so with a massive write-in campaign that saw him tallying more than 60% of the overall vote at the time the race was called.
The vote totals also appeared to show Phillips, who vowed to remain in the race, in a distant second, ahead of author Marrianne Williamson, another Biden critic.
The exclusion of Biden from the ballot stemmed from the dispute between New Hampshire and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) over whether the state’s primary would be held before South Carolina’s — a much more diverse state that the president won in a landslide in 2020.
New Hampshire refused to go along with the proposed DNC changes, and Biden subsequently decided not to file to place his name on the ballot.
No delegates were allocated Tuesday as the primary was unsanctioned, but the DNC is expected to review the matter down the line.
Following Trump’s sizable win, more big-name Republicans began calling on Haley to drop out of the race, including Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.
“Looking at the math and the path going forward, I don’t see it for Nikki Haley,” McDaniel told Fox News. “I think she’s run a great campaign, but I do think there is a message that’s coming out from the voters which is very clear: We need to unite around our eventual nominee, which is going to be Donald Trump, and we need to make sure we beat Joe Biden.”
“It is 10 months away until the November election, and we can’t wait any longer to put out foot on the gas to beat the worst president, to beat a president that’s kept our borders open, allowed fentanyl to pour through, allowed inflation to go rampant. He is hurting the American people, and we need to do everything we can to unite so that we can defeat him,” she added.
Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy also took a sharp tone toward Haley, blasting her continued candidacy by saying it represents the “ugly underbelly of American politics, where the mega-donors are trying to do one thing when we the people say another.”
“And it’s up to us, to we the people to at long last say, hell no, we the people create a government that is accountable to us and we the people have said tonight we want again, as we did in Iowa, Donald J. Trump,” he added.
The New Hampshire Republican primary saw record turnout on Tuesday despite some reports that low energy among voters would depress the vote.
With approximately 92% of the vote counted, more than 293,000 ballots had been cast compared to just over 101,000 with approximately 88% of the vote counted in the Democrat primary.
The previous record for a Republican primary in the state was set in 2016 during Trump’s first run for the presidency, when around 284,000 cast ballots.
Only registered Republicans and undeclared voters could participate in the GOP primary. Undeclared voters could also choose to vote in the Democrat primary, but could not cast ballots in both. A plurality of registered voters in New Hampshire are undeclared.
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
