After New Hampshire, is there much of a GOP primary left?
A double-digit win in the Granite State leaves little runway for any candidate not named Trump


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.
Trump: Haley would be under investigation by those people in 15 minutes, and I could tell you five reasons why already. Not big reasons, little stuff she doesn't want to talk about and would Ron have been pic.twitter.com/erg2VTErFRJanuary 24, 2024
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.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
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.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
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."
Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.
-
October 6 editorial cartoons
Cartoons Monday’s political cartoons include bad news overload, Donald Trump repeatedly crossing a red line, and the Statue of Liberty fallen on hard times
-
Scorching hot sauces that pack a punch
The Week Recommends The best sauces to tingle your lips and add a fiery kick to your food
-
Syria’s strange post-Assad election
The Explainer Sunday’s limited vote ‘suited the phase Syria is undergoing’, says interim president
-
Russia: already at war with Europe?
Talking Point As Kremlin begins ‘cranking up attacks’ on Ukraine’s European allies, questions about future action remain unanswered
-
Trump declares ‘armed conflict’ with drug cartels
speed read This provides a legal justification for recent lethal military strikes on three alleged drug trafficking boats
-
Why is this government shutdown so consequential?
Today's Big Question Federal employee layoffs could be in the thousands
-
Supreme Court rules for Fed’s Cook in Trump feud
Speed Read Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can remain in her role following Trump’s attempts to oust her
-
‘This isn’t just semantics’
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Miami Freedom Tower’s MAGA library squeeze
THE EXPLAINER Plans to place Donald Trump’s presidential library next to an iconic symbol of Florida’s Cuban immigrant community has South Florida divided
-
Judge rules Trump illegally targeted Gaza protesters
Speed Read The Trump administration’s push to arrest and deport international students for supporting Palestine is deemed illegal
-
Trump: US cities should be military ‘training grounds’
Speed Read In a hastily assembled summit, Trump said he wants the military to fight the ‘enemy within’ the US