The cheers had a different tone Sunday afternoon when Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley arrived at a small lobster restaurant in Seabrook, in southern New Hampshire.
The news had just broken, a few minutes earlier: Ron DeSantis announced that he was leaving the race, leaving the former United States ambassador to the United Nations in a final face-to-face with ex-President Donald Trump, barely two days before the primary which will be played on Tuesday in this New England state.
“From now on, there is only one guy and one woman left,” she said with a smile in front of a small group of supporters who came to meet her. “So I leave you with this: may the best woman win,” she added.
The New Hampshire primary entered a new phase on Sunday, opening the door a little wider to the former governor of South Carolina for victory in the Granite State.
“If Nikki Haley can win over independent voters and more moderate Republicans, it is possible for her to win New Hampshire, which could give her some momentum going to South Carolina [prochaine étape de cette course à l’investiture républicaine], summarizes political scientist Trish Crouse, joined at the University of New Haven, in Connecticut, in an interview. The profile of New Hampshire voters is very different from that of Iowa voters, who tend to be more conservative. »
The state was won in a landslide by Trump last week. “Independent voters are the largest voting bloc in New Hampshire, and I believe they might not vote for Trump if they feel they have a better option, which would now be Nikki Haley,” she continued.
Jan Louise, who came from Portsmouth to meet the candidate at Seabrook, is certainly part of this group. “I have always voted Republican, but I no longer recognize myself in this party,” she said. The prospect of seeing a woman win New Hampshire on Tuesday makes me happy. If she wins our state, I believe it will open people’s eyes to her potential to go further and win the nomination. »
“There is absolutely room in this party for a solid, serious, intelligent and intentional person like her. Not just for a detestable person, a bully, a liar… We can no longer afford a leader like that,” she added, without naming the leader: Donald Trump.
Fight the chaos
On Saturday, at a political rally in Keene, in the west of the state, Nikki Haley sought to echo this call for renewal by inviting her supporters to “accept the hard truth.” “I voted for him twice,” she said. He was a good president at the right time. I agree with his policies. But chaos follows him. »
“Chaos follows him, you know I’m right,” she repeated. And we cannot, in the state of disarray in which our country finds itself and in a world on fire, have four more years of chaos. We won’t survive it. »
In a statement sent to the media on Sunday by her campaign team, following the announcement made by Ron DeSantis, the candidate also wanted to reiterate that mass was still far from being said by recalling that only one state for the moment had voted. It was Iowa a few days ago. “Half of the votes went to Donald Trump and the other half did not. We are not a coronation country. Voters have their say on whether they once again follow the path blazed by Trump and Joe Biden or choose a new conservative path. »
The words of these voters, Brad Copithorne, volunteer for Nikki Haley’s campaign, also hopes that she will speak “strongly and clearly” on Tuesday, he said at the entrance to a rally politics for the candidate, Saturday in Peterborough. “She can make Trump vulnerable and draw attention to herself as much as to an injured candidate” by a performance less good than that announced by the polls, this surprise that New Hampshire has often offered in the context of the primaries.
The latest Suffolk University poll, conducted last weekend, gives 57% of voting intentions to Donald Trump, a lead of 19 points over Nikki Haley.
Between hope and hostility
“Ron DeSantis’ departure now leaves Nikki Haley as the only Republican alternative to Trump, and that may help her stay in the race longer, raise money for her campaign, and continue to attract support. anti-Trump vote for a while,” says Dean Lacy, a political scientist and public opinion specialist at Dartmouth College.
The ex-diplomat argued that she fully intended to stay in the race until the South Carolina primaries, and even until “Super Tuesday” on March 5, the day when a large bloc of States will go to the polls no matter what happens Tuesday in the New Hampshire primaries, she assured.
But the terrain is also becoming more and more hostile for her, since the Trump machine now has only one target on which to direct its heavy guns and “peer pressure within the Republican Party” will also go into overdrive. increasing “so that the candidacy of Donald Trump is considered the only viable one,” adds Dante Scala, professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, in an interview.
Sunday evening, in Rochester, the ex-president also focused his attacks on the only serious candidate to face him now, by continuing to define her as the candidate of the Republican establishment and by listing the list of politicians from South Carolina, the state of Nikki Haley, who gave him their support for the next presidential election. Republican Senator Tim Scott is the latest to line up behind the populist.
“She’s a career politician, I don’t trust her,” summed up Sue O’Sullivan, a Trumpist activist who came at the weekend to harangue passers-by and promote the ex-president’s candidacy on a roundabout. of Keene, flag in hand. “We don’t need this in our country. What we want are politicians who are not politicians. »
“People don’t know his name,” assured Scott Cyganiewicz at his side, between two calls launched into his megaphone in support of Donald Trump and the urgency of making him the big winner on Tuesday to “recover order and bring glory to the country. “Nikki Haley is going to barely have a voice,” he promised.
Then he said, “If there is no voter fraud in these primaries, Donald Trump is going to win New Hampshire and every other state after that.” You’ll see. »
At midnight Tuesday, as is tradition, the small community of Dixville Notch, in the rural north of the Granite State, will be the first to vote, letting the handful of villagers give a taste of this vote. An election which is undoubtedly the last to allow Nikki Haley to impose a new trajectory in this race for the Republican nomination.