{"id":10163,"date":"2024-01-27T14:38:21","date_gmt":"2024-01-27T14:38:21","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"On-the-Trail-53808547\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=10163","title":{"rendered":"On the trail: Primary record set,\u00a0Sununu\u2019s impact mixed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"New
New Hampshire Secretary of State officials Dan Cloutier (left) and John Kiritsy check the ballots matching them with the electronic tallies in the Executive Council Chambers at the State House on the morning after the primary on Wednesday, January 24.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"New
New Hampshire Secretary of State officials check the ballots matching them with the electronic tallies in the Executive Council Chambers at the State House on the morning after the primary on Wednesday, January 24, 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"A
A NH Secretary of State official Dan Cloutier checks ballots matching them with the electronic tallies in the Executive Council Chambers at the State House on Jan. 24.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Republican
Republican presidential candidate former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, center left, and N.H. Gov. Chris Sununu, center right, greet people, Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024, near a polling site at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, N.H. (AP Photo\/Steven Senne)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>

The real winner on Tuesday was the group of New Hampshire voters who made history.<\/p>\n

A record 323,166 votes were cast in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary.<\/p>\n

Equally impressive, 121,152 votes were cast in the Democratic primary in a contest where the incumbent president wasn\u2019t even on the ballot and where no delegates were at stake due to the primary\u2019s unsanctioned status with the Democratic National Committee.<\/p>\n

Trump ended up with 175,308 votes to Haley\u2019s 139,792, which gave the former president a 54.2% to 43.3% margin of victory.<\/p>\n

In the Democratic primary, President Joe Biden won 77,051 write-in votes, with his top primary challenger Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota winning 23,977 votes. Biden\u2019s percentage over Phillips was 63.6% to 19.8%.<\/p>\n

Sununu\u2019s impact\u00a0mixed<\/h2>\n

With the New Hampshire primary slowly fading into the rear-view mirror, Gov. Chris Sununu is still fighting for Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley.<\/p>\n

Sununu, in multiple interviews this week, took aim at Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel and some other top GOP leaders for saying that it\u2019s time the party rallies around Donald Trump\u00a0following the former president\u2019s back-to-back double-digit victories in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, which are the first two contests in the Republican presidential nominating calendar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s nonsense. You got to let the voters decide, not a bunch of political elites out of DC,\u201d the governor emphasized.<\/p>\n

Sununu, who a year ago flirted with his own White House run, six weeks ago endorsed Haley\u2019s bid for the nomination and instantly became the biggest cheerleader and surrogate as well as the top New Hampshire adviser for Haley, a former two-term South Carolina governor who later served as U.N. ambassador in the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Sununu, a vocal GOP Trump critic, gambled on Haley as he endorsed her on Dec. 12 instead of backing longtime friend and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another outspoken Trump critic. Sununu also passed on supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who at the time was still in distant second place to Trump in the public opinion surveys in Iowa and in national polls.<\/p>\n

Haley had been on the rise for a couple of months when she landed Sununu\u2019s much-coveted backing, thanks in part to her rapport with voters and her well-regarded performances in the late summer and autumn in the first three Republican primary debates.<\/p>\n

But Sununu\u2019s endorsement, and his constant companionship on the campaign trail, instantly gave Haley\u2019s campaign an extra shot of adrenaline, which resulted in her surge in New Hampshire primary polling and her catching up with DeSantis for second place in Iowa and in national surveys.<\/p>\n

In December, Sununu suggested that Haley could win in New Hampshire, but as the primary date neared, he lowered the goalposts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve already exceeded expectations in terms of a one-on-one race,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cA strong second is going to be great.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspending his campaign two days ahead of the primary, the GOP contest turned into what Haley had repeatedly called it \u2013 a two-person race.<\/p>\n

Haley ended up finishing 11 points behind Trump. The margin \u2013 while tighter than what most of the final public opinion surveys forecast \u2013 was still short of the victory that many pundits said Haley needed in order to slow down Trump\u2019s march toward the nomination. Pointing to the prominent role independent voters\u00a0have long played in New Hampshire\u2019s storied primary, those pundits argued that the Granite State was likely Haley\u2019s best shot at wounding Trump.<\/p>\n

Haley quickly declared on primary night that \u201cthis race is far from over,\u201d but she headed home to South Carolina \u2013 which holds the next major GOP presidential primary on Feb. 24 \u2013 facing a steep uphill climb for the nomination and resisting calls to drop out of the race.<\/p>\n

The day after the primary, Sununu was still spinning for Haley, noting that \u201cthere were polls saying that Nikki was going to lose by 25 points or more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Analysts are mixed on Sununu\u2019s impact on the primary race.<\/p>\n

\u201cSununu is the one who motivated Haley\u2019s campaign and made her a much better candidate,\u201d said New Hampshire Institute of Politics Executive Director Neil Levesque.<\/p>\n

\u201cSununu definitely shined. I think he was a big winner in this whole thing,\u201d Levesque added. \u201cShe didn\u2019t reach the goalpost, but she got the ball all the way down the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Longtime New Hampshire-based Republican strategist Mike Dennehy had a different take.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good news is that Sununu had influence with independent voters and the bad news is he absolutely no influence with registered Republicans,\u201d\u00a0Dennehy said.<\/p>\n

As for any lasting impact, Dennehy \u2013 who is a veteran of multiple GOP presidential campaigns \u2013 said it\u2019s likely that \u201csix months for now it will all be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The real winner on Tuesday was the group of New Hampshire voters who made history.A record 323,166 votes were cast in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary.Equally impressive, 121,152 votes were cast in the Democratic primary in a contest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":489,"featured_media":10164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":true,"_newspack_byline":"by [Author id=489]Paul Steinhauser[\/Author] For the Monitor","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[512,19],"tags":[24,505,25],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[547],"class_list":["post-10163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homebox5-cm","category-politics","tag-facebook","tag-paywall","tag-primary-2024","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/42760316-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/489"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10165,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10163\/revisions\/10165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10163"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=10163"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=10163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}