Haley Supporters Cling to Hope Despite Trump’s New Hampshire Win: ‘Strange Things Happen’

Concord, N.H. — Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley congratulated her former boss Donald Trump on his primary victory here Tuesday night but warned him that the fight for the GOP nomination is “far from over.”

“New Hampshire is first in the nation, it is not the last,” she said in an election-night speech that cast the former president as too chaotic and polarizing to win another general election. “This court case, that controversy, this tweet, that senior moment. You can’t fix Joe Biden’s chaos with Republican chaos.”

Haley’s strongest supporters here are cheering her on, even though she has now lost to Trump in independent-heavy New Hampshire — where she has staked most of her campaign — and came in a distant third in the January 15 Iowa caucuses. Speaking with National Review inside her election-night party Tuesday evening, many Haley voters said that clearing the 40 percent vote threshold in New Hampshire puts her in a strong position to continue pressing forward.

“She’s in great shape,” said Pamela Valentine, a registered Republican who splits her time between New Hampshire and Massachusetts. “This is very early.”

Before the Granite State primary was called for Trump, Eric Jostrom of Sugar Hill, N.H., said Haley would be wise to continue picking up delegates in the event that Trump’s legal troubles complicate his path to the GOP nomination.

“Put it this way: Strange things happen,” said an optimistic Jostrom, gin and tonic in hand. “They seem to be getting stranger all the time. Supposing she’s out there, and she’s in the race, Trump gets sidelined for one reason or another. What happens is she’s got the field to herself.”

In recent weeks Haley has leaned into the electability argument, casting herself as a stronger general-election candidate against President Joe Biden. The first two nominating contests suggest that base Republican voters are not yet buying that argument, to put it mildly.

Her next big test would be the February 24 GOP primary in her home state of South Carolina, where she served two terms as governor and now trails in the polls. She heads toward that contest as the GOP cavalry continues to rally around Trump. “You’re not going to see some congressional people get around me because I think we need to have term limits in Washington, D.C.,” Haley told supporters during her election eve rally in Salem, N.H., of the latest elected Republicans who have thrown their support behind Trump. As of Sunday, that camp now includes former presidential candidate and Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

Some high-profile Trump endorsements have likely stung more than others. One day before the Iowa caucuses, the former president secured the endorsement of Florida senator Marco Rubio, whom Haley had endorsed in his 2016 bid against Trump. And on Friday, Trump won the support of former 2024 presidential candidate and South Carolina senator Tim Scott, whom Haley appointed to his seat.

During his victory speech Tuesday evening, Trump twisted the knife. “Did you ever think that she actually appointed you, Tim?” Trump said, turning to Scott. “You must really hate her.”

“I just love you,” Scott answered.

Chuck Douglas of Pembroke, N.H., told NR inside Haley’s election-night party he’s “disgusted” that someone like Scott would snub the very person he should be thanking for his political career. “If someone does you a favor, you got to remember that,” he said.

Like many other Haley supporters inside her election-party, Douglas said he hopes GOP voters will soon start to question Trump’s mental fitness, citing recent gaffes he’s made on the stump.

“I think if Trump keeps making stupid comments like she was in charge of security at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, people are gonna wonder, as they do about Biden, about whether he’s got it all together,” he said.