After New Hampshire, is there much of a GOP primary left?

While two early voting states have swung decisively for former President Donald Trump to secure the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, it's still probably a bit too early to dust off the worn political cliche that it's "all over but the shouting." For one thing, it does a dismissive disservice to the sheer hyperbolic intensity of the shouting done by Trump during his post-New Hampshire primary victory speech on Tuesday night. There, flanked by aides and endorsers, the former president vowed to "get even" with his chief rival and onetime United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, threatening that he knew "five reasons" she would be "under investigation in minutes" if she won. 

Typical aggressive bravado notwithstanding, Trump's eagerness to stick a fork in a Republican primary race that's been both a year in the making, and also just several weeks old is understandable; he has long been the odds-on favorite to secure his party's nomination, racking up both delegates and a significant list of high profile endorsees including most recently Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), his onetime main electoral threat. 

But with dozens of primaries and caucuses ahead, Haley's team is urging patience from those who would declare this race over almost before it began. As campaign manager Betsy Ankney cautioned in a recent memo, everyone should "take a deep breath," because the real work "has not even begun in any of these states yet." Nevertheless, as Haley works to consolidate the disparate strands of anti-Trump Republicans into a cohesive bloc, she remains behind a distinctly Trump-shaped eight ball within a GOP in the midst of remade in her rival's image.  

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What did the commentators say?

While it's too early to declare the GOP primary officially finished, it's still a "reasonable question" to ask in the wake of Trump's 11-point New Hampshire victory, The New York Times' Nate Cohn said. That question, he added, hinges largely on whether if by "over" you mean Trump is "on track to win without a serious contest" in which case "the answer is probably 'yes.'"

"The math is not there" for Haley to win moving forward, GOP strategist Sarah Longwell told USA Today, while arch-conservative outlet The Federalist called Haley's choice to delay officially dropping out the "elephant in the GOP war room" ahead of making her defeat "final and official." 

Electoral math in the upcoming primary states is not the only problem for Haley, Republican operative Scott Jennings told Politico. Rather, Haley's issue-based messaging doesn't seem to be landing with voters in general, with Republicans "saying over and over again that they want [...] to replay this one more time so Donald Trump can be right." Perhaps most damning of all, President Joe Biden's own team has essentially dismissed Haley as a non-factor moving forward, with campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez telling reporters on Wednesday that Trump's New Hampshire victory "has all but locked up the GOP nomination." 

Haley's challenges moving forward are threefold, argued The New Republic's Walter Shapiro. She and her super-PAC must continue to raise money while facing a barrage of questions about whether to drop out of the race, even as Trump's post-New Hampshire momentum earns him a new round of GOP endorsements. To that end, while she doesn't have a "glimmer of a chance," the month between now and the South Carolina primary offers her "a micron of hope" that the party has time to reconsider backing Trump in spite of his obvious flaws and electoral red flags. 

What next? 

Haley's own combative post-New Hampshire speech suggested she's approaching this next phase of the race "with a devil-may-care attitude," argued The Dispatch. Crucially, her camp claims, she has the funds to "fight through in South Carolina." As one South Carolina republican figure told the outlet, Haley will stay in the race "because she thinks it's the right fight," no matter the party pressure to consolidate behind Trump. Moreover, Trump's ongoing legal peril and erratic behavior "could prompt the kind of seismic shift" Haley would need to shift the field in her favor the longer she stays in, according to The Washington Post. 

Still, the paper cautioned, as things stand now, Trump is on track to make this the "shortest primary season in recent presidential history."