The day after a landslide victory in the Iowa primary, Donald Trump began Tuesday to court voters in New Hampshire, a small state in the northeast where he hopes to take, starting next week, a further step towards Republican nomination.
The former president made his entrance Tuesday evening in a crowded room in the town of Atkinson, cheered by his supporters who braved the snow to come and for some waited all day.
On stage alongside him, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, who abandoned the nomination race on Monday and sided with Donald Trump, delivered a fiery speech in his honor.
Donald Trump praised “hard-working American patriots” and congratulated himself on his old victory in Iowa, “the greatest” ever.
In fact, the 77-year-old tycoon took a giant step towards a new duel in November with Joe Biden to capture the White House, after winning 98 of Iowa’s 99 constituencies on Monday.
– Nikki Haley huée –
With 51% of the vote, the former president largely outdistanced in this rural Midwestern state the two other strongest contenders in the primaries: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former American ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley.
In New Hampshire, the Republican primary scheduled for January 23 will be open to voters who are not affiliated with either party, which could benefit a candidate perceived as more centrist such as Nikki Haley.
“Nikki Haley is particularly counting on Democrats and liberals to infiltrate your Republican primaries,” Donald Trump said on stage on Tuesday, with Vivek Ramaswamy even going so far as to make the candidate boo.
“If she wins, Biden wins,” said the former president.
“It’s Trump that I’m fighting,” Nikki Haley declared on Monday, saying she wasn’t that concerned about the governor of Florida. Ron DeSantis, with tough positions on immigration and abortion, came second in Iowa, far behind Donald Trump with 21% of the vote.
The competition for the Republican nomination will formally end in July at the Conservative Party convention, but if the former president wins again in New Hampshire, it will become extremely difficult for both Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis to actually stay. in the race.
– Tribunal –
The fact remains that this campaign will not be easy for the big favorite. Indicted in four criminal cases, Donald Trump will have to juggle campaign events and legal meetings in the coming months.
The former president thus attended the opening in New York earlier Tuesday of his defamation trial, brought by an author who had already had him convicted in civil court last year for sexual assault.
He, who promises his supporters to “avenge” them for a 2020 election whose result he never recognized and who intends to use the courtrooms in his campaign, announced his intention to return there on Wednesday morning.
Although the prosecution against him puts him at risk of prison, it has not served him well in Iowa. What will happen in New Hampshire? The state is considered more moderate.
– Neither –
The current president, whose campaign is struggling to take off, is counting on a pushback effect from his great Republican rival among independent voters, growing as the presidential election draws closer.
“We have to work even harder now. If Donald Trump is our opponent, we should expect petty attacks, endless lies and outrageous spending,” Joe Biden wrote Tuesday in an email seeking donations for a race. the White House which promises to break all financial records.
“I remain the only person to have beaten Donald Trump and I can’t wait to do it again,” he said in a video published on X (formerly Twitter).
The 81-year-old Democrat has little competition for his party’s nomination, which will be decided in August, despite the negative effect of his age among American voters.
The vast majority of voters in question say they do not want a new duel between the octogenarian president and his septuagenarian predecessor. But unless there is a huge surprise or serious health accident for one or the other between now and the fall, they will not escape it.
2024-01-15 08:00:00
#Trump #launched #Republican #nomination
