what are the stakes in the primaries in New Hampshire for Republicans and Democrats?

On the conservative side, the vote can confirm Donald Trump’s favorite status. For Joe Biden’s party, this vote has the particularity of being held without the president’s name appearing on the ballots.

This is the traditional second stage of the primaries for the American presidential election. Voters in New Hampshire, on the east coast of the United States, are called to vote on Tuesday, January 23, to nominate the Democratic and Republican candidates in the race for the White House.

A week after coming first in the Iowa caucuses, Donald Trump seeks to confirm his lead in the race for the conservative nomination. On the Democratic side, the first election of 2024 is being played without Joe Biden. Franceinfo summarizes the issues of this new voting day for you.

For Donald Trump, the opportunity to consolidate his favorite status

Observers will have their eyes glued to the results of the Republican primaries in New Hampshire on Tuesday evening. A week after winning more than 50% of the vote in Iowa, and with three other candidates dropping out, Donald Trump appears increasingly assured of winning the party’s nomination in July. Despite indictments in multiple cases, the ex-president has more than 50 points ahead of his opponents, according to the poll aggregator site FiveThirtyEight.

If he “wins by a lot [dans le New Hampshire]as polls suggest”, “the race will, so to speak, already be over”the daily newspaper reported on Monday The New York Times. The first two states in the primaries award only a small number of 2 429 delegates who will nominate the party’s candidate at the Republican National Convention in July. But winning two victories in a row would further strengthen Donald Trump’s favorite status. His last opponents would then have little chance of shaking his lead in the next rounds.

For Nikki Haley, an opportunity to appear as a credible opponent

Donald Trump’s overwhelming victory in the Iowa caucuses caused a massacre in the ranks of candidates for the Republican nomination. Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy both threw in the towel after their defeat. But it is above all the abandonment of Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida and number 2 in the polls for months, which changes the situation. With this withdrawal, Nikki Haley is now Donald Trump’s main rival. Only one other candidate, the little-known Texas pastor Ryan Binkley, is still in the running against them.

The former governor of South Carolina and former American ambassador to the UN, well ahead of Donald Trump in voting intentions, also only came in third position during the Iowa caucuses. But a victory in New Hampshire could give it new momentum, estimates Reuters. Such success would allow him to address the primaries in “his” state, South Carolina, “as a viable alternative to Trump”but also to obtain new support to finance his campaign, analyzes the American press agency.

The task nevertheless promises to be difficult, especially since Ron DeSantis has called for voting for Donald Trump. The candidate, who strives to cultivate a more moderate image than her competitors, nevertheless has a chance of winning over in this state where independents represent nearly 40% of the electorate, analyzes Karen Tumulty, political columnist for the daily The Washington Post.

For the Democrats, a purely symbolic ballot

Traditionally, New Hampshire is the second state to vote for the Republican and Democratic primaries for the presidential election. But this year, Joe Biden’s party is faced with an unprecedented situation: no delegates will be allocated following this election.

To win the Democratic nomination, a candidate must obtain the votes of a majority of delegates at the party’s National Convention, which will take place in Chicago, Illinois, in August. Wishing to give more weight to states more representative of the diversity of American demographics, Joe Biden has decided that South Carolina will kick off the party primaries on February 3. The black electorate of this state played an essential role in his victory in the 2020 primaries.

However, the New Hampshire Democratic office defied the president’s order by keeping the vote until Tuesday, January 23. The sanction was not long in coming: the party’s national committee (DNC) announced that zero votes would be allocated at the end of these primaries, as reported by the Associated Press agency. Clearly, the ballot is “unimportant”assures the DNC.

Joe Biden has also decided to avoid these primaries. The outgoing president, almost assured of being designated candidate for his own succession, will therefore not appear on the ballot papers. Some of his supporters called on voters to add his name by hand, in the hope of seeing him win despite everything in New Hampshire, notes the CNN channel on your site. The objective? Prove that the current tenant of the White House does not even need to be officially a candidate to be elected, a few months before the presidential election. This success could strengthen the dynamics of his campaign, while the latest polls relayed by FiveThirtyEight show Donald Trump winning in the event of a duel with Joe Biden on November 5.