Nikki Haley isn't throwing in the towel.
The former ambassador to the UN and former governor of South Carolina has been defeated by Donald Trump in New Hampshire, but she will continue fighting.
The New Hampshire primaries are the first, not the last, she argued in her speech assessing the election results this Tuesday at a hotel in Concord, the capital of New Hampshire.
Haley thus challenges Trump to a long battle for the nomination.
“I congratulate Donald Trump on his victory tonight.
He has earned it and I want to recognize it.
Now you have all heard the chatter among the political class saying that this race is over.
Well, I have news for all of them.
New Hampshire is the first state [to hold primaries] in the nation.
It's not the last one.
This race is far from over, there are dozens of states ahead and the next one is my sweet state of South Carolina,” Haley said after thanking family and collaborators.
New Hampshire is the state where Nikki Haley, Trump's only real rival who remained this Tuesday after the withdrawal of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, had the best prospects.
But if Haley has not been able to win in this relatively moderate state, where she had the enthusiastic support of the governor and where independent voters had the possibility of participating in the Republican primaries, it will be more difficult for her to do so in the rest of the country. .
Donald Trump recalled this Monday that the Republican primary race had started with more than a dozen candidates and that there were only two left.
“And I think one person will probably leave tomorrow,” he stressed, referring to a possible withdrawal of Haley.
The former president's rival, however, is not retiring.
“At one point in this campaign, we were 14 candidates and we were at 2% in the polls.
Well, I'm a fighter and now we're the last ones standing next to Donald Trump.
Today we have gotten about half of the votes.
We still have a way to go, but we continue to climb,” she said.
Haley appeared when the vote was just over 20% and she had 44% of the votes, compared to Trump's 54.5%.
The former president has shown his disappointment on social media that Haley is not giving up.
Haley has taken advantage of her acceptance speech in New Hampshire to begin the campaign for the next primary.
“For many people, politics is too personal.
For me it's not personal.
I voted for Trump twice.
I was proud to serve the United States and his cabinet.
I agree with many of his policies.
I decided to run because I am concerned about the future of our country.
And because it is time to leave negativity and chaos behind,” she said.
“We have an economy that is crushing middle class Americans.
We have a completely open and dangerous border that is creating a disaster in our country.
We have schools that are failing many of our children, and we have a world on fire with a war in Europe and the Middle East and a huge and growing threat from China.
And then we look at Washington, DC.
We have a Congress that fights for everything and achieves nothing.
And we have Joe Biden in the White House making one bad decision after another, when he makes a decision at all.
Our country is a real disaster.
The question is who is going to fix it,” he said before attacking his current rival.
Haley recalled that with Donald Trump the Republicans have lost almost all competitive elections.
“We have lost the Senate.
We lost the House.
We lost the White House.
We lost in 2018. We lost in 2020 and we lost in 2022. The worst kept secret in politics is the desire that Democrats have to run against Donald Trump.
They know that Trump is the only Republican in the country that Joe Biden can defeat.
You can't fix the mess if you don't win an election.
A Trump nomination is a bad plan and a Kamala Harris presidency,” she has attacked.
In the case of Republicans, the next stage of the primaries is Nevada, but it is somewhat confusing.
There are primaries on February 6 (voting at the polls at a defined time, like conventional elections) and
caucuses
(somewhat informal assemblies of citizens where they vote for their candidates)
two days later.
Until 2020 there were only
caucuses
, but that year the assemblies and scrutiny were chaotic and the state legislature, in Democratic hands, approved moving to primaries in 2024. However, the Republican Party rebelled and not only continues to hold caucuses
,
but also concedes delegates depending on them.
Haley is on the primary ballots, but is not participating in the
caucuses.
And with Trump, who will take the delegates, the opposite happens: he is in the
caucuses,
but he is not on the ballots.
After Nevada, on February 24 will come the primaries of South Carolina, Haley's home state, but where the former president has solid support and is the clear favorite.
That is the next appointment that Haley has set and the result will depend on whether the race remains open on Super Tuesday, March 5, the day on which elections are held in a greater number of States.
[Breaking news.
There will be an update soon]
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