No matter what Nikki Haley says... the reality is President Donald Trump had a huge victory last night in New Hampshire. In a vote stacked by Democrats and liberal independents, Mr. Trump still garnered 54% and defeated second place Haley by 11 percentage points, winning the highest number of votes anyone has ever won in a New Hampshire primary, Republican or Democrat.
Of course, he swept in the Iowa caucus – with over 50% – where Nikki Haley finished third, 32 points behind Trump and it's very rare anyone takes both Iowa and New Hampshire in the presidential race.
Now, Trump knows he must unify the GOP and, in fact, he's already pulled in candidates Vivek Ramaswamy, Senator Tim Scott, Governor Ron DeSantis and Governor Doug Burgum and these folks barnstormed with him in New Hampshire in tour-de-force rallies, but Nikki Haley is still in the race despite her big time losses.
Ok, fine. It's her choice. She's going to get clobbered in South Carolina, her home state, but I certainly respect her decision to keep running. However, her performance last night will not do her any good.
She rushed to the microphone relatively early during the vote count and she then gave a speech that suggested that she was the winner. Nonsense. She lost by 11 points. Trump got 54% of the vote. She had 43%. That's a loss and what was her message? She wants Trump to take a mental competency test. Really?
She has really no other narrative than cheap shots at Mr. Trump and President Trump, who is accustomed to people taking cheap shots at him, had this to say about it:
DONALD TRUMP: "I felt I should do this because in life, you can't let people get away with b-------, okay? You can't. You just don't do that. I said, 'What's she doing?' We won and she did the same thing last week."
He is a major league fighter and I think he would've preferred to be more gracious, as he was when he welcomed DeSantis and Vivek and Senator Scott into the fold, but he doesn't like phonies and he doesn't like cheap shots. Personally, I think that's all Nikki Haley has. That is her narrative. However, Mr. Trump, in his fighting mood, did a good job last night punching at President Biden. Take a listen:
DONALD TRUMP: "They must hate our country because there's no other reason that they can be doing the things they do. Take a look, the taxes they want to raise your taxes times four. They want to let the Trump tax cuts, the biggest tax cuts in the history of our country, they want them to expire. Your taxes are going to go through the roof. You take a look at regulations. They're throwing regulations. You can't breathe. You can't even breathe with what they're doing."
This is former President Trump's strength. Cutting taxes, eliminating onerous regulations, keeping the dollar as the world's reserve currency, and digging for liquid gold and, the number one issue in New Hampshire, just like Iowa, is the illegal immigration problem coming from the Southern border, but also coming from the Northern border.
According to the Fox News Voter Analysis, among Republican voters in New Hampshire who said immigration was the top issue facing the country, 73% broke for Trump. Haley hardly ever mentions the open border – or, for that matter, tax cuts or deregulation for the economy. She never mentions opening the spigots for fossil fuels. She's running a negative campaign against Trump and it's going to fail badly.
Mr. Trump, on the other hand, will continue to focus on Joe Biden, with a big-tent embrace that says successful policies on the economy, and the border, and foreign affairs will unify the entire country. Already, his issues-oriented campaign has attracted record support among groups like Hispanics, African Americans and Asian Americans.
As for Haley, yesterday afternoon, before the polls closed, Trump magnanimously said: "She can do whatever she wants, it doesn't matter". Atta boy, Mr. Trump. Spot on.
This article is adapted from Larry Kudlow’s opening commentary on the January 24, 2024, edition of "Kudlow."
