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Campaign turning increasingly personal as DeSantis’s drop out puts remaining Republican candidates head to head in New Hampshire
Nikki Haley never seems to be far from Donald Trump’s thoughts.
Fresh off a landslide win in Iowa, the former president hopes to cement his hold on the Republican nomination contest in New Hampshire, which votes next, and only Ms Haley stands in the way.
“I don’t even talk about DeSanctus – whatever happened to him?” Mr Trump told a rally in Concord, using his nickname for Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who is polling a distant third in the state.
But he had plenty to say about Ms Haley. His former UN ambassador, he said, wasn’t “tough enough”, “smart enough”, or “respected enough” to be the commander-in-chief.
“She’s down very low [in polls]. We’ll finish it off. This could end it,” he said ahead of Tuesday’s election in the Granite State.
Mr Trump is not wrong. The result could determine the trajectory of the Republican primary contest.
If Mr Trump, 77, repeats the large margin of victory he secured in the Iowa caucuses last week, it is likely to be game over for Ms Haley, 52, and Mr DeSantis, 45.
But Ms Haley’s bet on New Hampshire has put her head-to-head with Mr Trump, and in contention to win the state.
To power her to victory she is relying on a broad voter coalition, made up of Republicans who have tired of Mr Trump, and independents, who are able to vote in the state’s open primary.
In a state where the motto is “live free or die”, non-party affiliated voters make up almost two fifths of the electorate.
They may play an even more pivotal role this year because there is no real contest on the Democratic side.
Aware of the threat, Mr Trump has already laid the foundation to claim foul play.
He has claimed Democrats could “infiltrate” the race, although the deadline to switch party registration was in October.
Mr Trump appears to be so unsettled by his 52-year-old rival he even uses her name seemingly unintentionally as he went on his tirade on Friday night in Concord.
As he discussed the lack of security at the Jan 6, 2021 Capitol riots, he seemed to criticise Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat Speaker of the House of Representatives at the time, but used Nikki Haley’s name.
He said: “By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6, you know, Nikki Haley. Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, you know, they – did you know they destroyed all the information and all of the evidence.
“Because of lots of things, like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard. So whatever they want, they turned it down.”
Like the apparition of a pantomime villain, the crowd booed, on cue, at the mention of the former South Carolina governor’s name.
But some looked confused. Ms Haley had not been near the Capitol at the time, nor had she been in elected office, much less responsible for the security of the Capitol.
Ms Haley lost no time in highlighting the gaffe, and pressing her advantage.
“They’re saying he got confused,” Ms Haley told her own supporters in Keene, western New Hampshire, the next morning.
“I’m not saying anything derogatory,” she continued, “but when you’re dealing with the pressures of the presidency, we can’t have someone else that we question whether they’re mentally fit to do this.”
Ms Haley’s willingness to hit Mr Trump with personal attacks is testament to the make-or-break stage of her campaign.
Mr Trump, too, has ramped up the rhetoric in recent days, nicknaming Ms Haley “Nimbra”, in what has been criticised as a dog whistle reference to her given name, Nimarata.
He has even given oxygen to a false “birther” conspiracy that Ms Haley is not eligible to become a US president on account of her Indian heritage.
Steven Cheung, Mr Trump’s campaign spokesman, has dismissed allegations of racism as “faux outrage”.
Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s press secretary, told The Telegraph they were “very confident that he remains in a strong position to win”.
“It’s just too bad that Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis don’t realise that they have no practical pathway to the nomination,” she said, adding: “If they want to keep staying in this race, we will fight them until they’re out.”
Ms Haley has been undeterred, criss-crossing the state’s snowy, rugged terrain, promising to shake every hand and answer any question.
“It’s the Haley and Trump show all week,” said New Hampshire-based strategist Jim Merrill, who held senior roles in campaigns of George W Bush, Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio.
He said: “It’s one of the last opportunities for voters to send the message that they want to make a change from Donald Trump and I think Nikki Haley has positioned herself to be in striking distance”.
New Hampshire’s electorate, Mr Merrill added, poses a “challenge” for Mr Trump. It is wealthier, has more university-educated voters, and favours candidates who have broader appeal.
But he cautions against viewing New Hampshire’s large independent constituency as a given advantage for Ms Haley.
“This is not a monolithic voting bloc,” he said, describing it as a healthy mix of conservatives, libertarians and progressives.
Added to which, Ms Haley must still contend with Mr Trump’s unshakeable grip over the Republican grassroots.
Hundreds of his supporters waited patiently in a snow-covered car park for over an hour to see the former president in Concord on Friday night.
Some wore red “MAGA” woolly hats or scarves to shield them from the bitterly cold winds as temperatures fell to -7C. Others had brought camp chairs in anticipation of the lengthy queues.
They included Jack Lianos, a 17-year-old student, who hopes to cast his first vote for Mr Trump in November’s general election, by which time he will be 18.
“I love Trump’s foreign policy,” he said, a key voting issue for him. “He’s not dumping money on other nations. I think that American money should stay in America.”
Like Jack, it was 40-year-old sales worker Geoff’s first Trump rally. A self-described libertarian conservative, he wasn’t an early convert to Mr Trump. But he was won over by the “peace and prosperity” he saw as the hallmark of the former president’s first term.
“I was managing a multi-million dollar company at the time and our best years were the Trump years,” he said. He’s ready, as he puts it, for “another go round with Trump”.
When he bounded onto stage, Mr Trump lost no time reminding them of their mission for Tuesday: turning out “in record numbers”.
“Margins are important,” he told them. “Not because of the people we’re running against… [but] because this could end it.”
He added: “And then we can focus on Biden.”
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