BEDFORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE - Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is vowing to stay in the race for the White House as Granite State voters cast their ballots in the first primary in the nation Tuesday.
Current NH vote tally:
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) January 23, 2024
Haley: 6
Trump: 0
In case you weren’t awake at midnight and missed it…Proud to have earned the votes of the residents of historic Dixville Notch! 🗳️ pic.twitter.com/sgWnbsApRI
In a new state of the race memo released to "interested parties," Haley campaign manager Betsey Ankney details the road ahead and ends with "See y'all in South Carolina." It outlines plans for Haley to fight through Super Tuesday on March 5, where the campaign says there is "fertile ground" for victory.
Here is the text of the memo in full:
It’s officially a two-person race. It’s Nikki Haley vs. Donald Trump.
We’ve come a long way in these 11 months. We started at 2%. We started with zero dollars in the bank. No one thought we had a shot. No one thought we could get it done.
And here we are, $50 million dollars raised, over 200 stops, and 12 fellas later, and Nikki’s still standing.
The political class and the media want to give Donald Trump a coronation. They say the race is over. They want to throw up their hands, after only 110,000 people have voted in a caucus in Iowa and say, well, I guess it’s Trump.
That isn’t how this works.
Roughly 50 percent of Republican primary voters want an alternative to Donald Trump. Seventyfive percent of the country wants an option other than Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
And while members of Congress, the press, and many of the weak-kneed fellas who ran for president are giving up and giving in – we aren’t going anywhere.
Nikki’s been up against this before. No one in South Carolina thought she had a chance. The entire political class – including many who are now supporting Donald Trump – lined up against her. But she tuned out the noise, focused on the people, focused on doing what was right for her state and her country – and the voters responded.
Nikki is the last hope to get our party and our country back on track. And we’re going to get the job done.
We’ve heard multiple members of the press say New Hampshire is “the best it’s going to get” for Nikki due to Independents and unaffiliated voters being able to vote in the Republican primary. The reality is that the path through Super Tuesday includes more states than not that have this dynamic. Independents voting in primaries is nothing new – historically, GOP nominees have relied on Independents as part of their path to victory, including Donald Trump in 2016. But in 2024, Nikki Haley is the beneficiary of those Independents – in both the Republican primaries and the general election. That’s why Trump’s own pollster shows her beating Biden by 17 points.
First up is Nikki’s home state of South Carolina, which has no party registration, and anyone can vote in the Republican primary if they have not already voted in the Democrat primary. South Carolina elected Nikki as Governor twice, against the odds. As a state representative, she beat the sitting Lieutenant Governor, the sitting Attorney General, and a popular member of Congress. The people of South Carolina KNOW Nikki’s strong conservative record because they lived it.
After South Carolina, we head to Michigan, which also has an open primary, followed by a closed primary in Washington, DC, and caucuses in Idaho and North Dakota.
Then it’s on to Super Tuesday on March 5, where, despite the media narrative, there is significant fertile ground for Nikki.
Eleven of the 16 Super Tuesday states have open or semi-open primaries. Of the 874 delegates available on Super Tuesday, roughly two thirds are in states with open or semi-open primaries.
Those include Virginia, Texas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Vermont, all with favorable demographics.
After Super Tuesday, we will have a very good picture of where this race stands. At that point, millions of Americans in 26 states and territories will have voted.
Until then, everyone should take a deep breath. The campaign has not even begun in any of these states yet. No ads have been aired and candidates aren’t hustling on the ground. A month in politics is a lifetime. We’re watching democracy in action. We’re letting the people have a voice. That’s how this is supposed to work.
And the choice voters face is clear. Do they want to focus on the past, or do they want a positive vision for the future? Do they want grievances and chaos and baggage, or do they want to get our country back on track? Do they want an 80-year-old man consumed by vendettas and confused by basic names and facts – that’s both Trump and Biden – or do they want a new generation of leadership with the strength and competence to get the job done?
And most importantly – DO REPUBLICANS WANT TO WIN?
See y’all in South Carolina.
In Iowa, Haley came in third. In New Hampshire she's polling behind former President Donald Trump, but the campaign is optimistic she can land an upset with the help of independent voters.