POLITICO
A FITN END? — Good morning from New Hampshire, which could make all the remaining GOP primaries irrelevant and sling us even more quickly into the JOE BIDEN–DONALD TRUMP rematch that Americans say they dread.
Let’s dig into what to expect from both contests today …
THE REPUBLICANS: Primaries are difficult to poll, and New Hampshire has a history of surprising pundits, but — Dixville Notch notwithstanding — Trump seems on the cusp of an enormous New Hampshire victory tonight that will, eventually, drive his last remaining opponent out of the race and make Trump the GOP presidential nominee for the third straight election.
Could NIKKI HALEY still win? The great Granite State upsets this century came from intense rivalries between two candidates whose faceoff riveted the country.
In 2000, New Hampshire reversed Iowa’s decision when JOHN McCAIN had his storied victory over GEORGE W. BUSH. In 2008, the state did the same when HILLARY CLINTON defeated BARACK OBAMA. These surges were seen in the polling and felt on the campaign trail. The Suffolk University tracking poll showed Clinton going from a 17-point deficit to 1-point advantage in the final five days. (She won by five points.)
The Trump-Haley fight looks nothing like those previous showdowns. They never debated. Haley’s New Hampshire strategy has been risk-averse. Her events are listless.
When a candidate suddenly catches fire in the final weekend of a primary race, curious voters suddenly flood their events. Haley’s final New Hampshire stops were modest, with none of the signs of a late surge. This morning’s final Globe/Suffolk/NBC10 tracking poll shows Trump hitting 60% support to Haley’s 38% — the widest spread all week.
If Haley defeats Trump today, it will be one of the greatest primary upsets in history.
An underappreciated feature of Trump’s strength against Haley in New Hampshire is that Trump has run a far more issues-based campaign than she has.
While Trump’s personal insults and off-the-wall comments attract most of the media attention, Trump’s TV advertising over the last few days has been highly disciplined.
It focuses on just two issues: immigration, hitting Haley from the right with specific references to unpopular (in a GOP primary) things she’s said, and Social Security, attacking her from the left by claiming she will raise the retirement age and gut benefits. Haley’s ads, meanwhile, are about electability, general exhaustion with Trump and Biden, and generational change.
The experience of watching the evening news goes something like this: three positive Haley ads in which you learn she’s a fresh face but almost nothing about her policy positions, followed by two Trump attack ads that are purely about her policy positions. In his prepared remarks at his rallies, he hammers these same two issues early, generally before he goes off on the more colorful tangents that get so much attention. The Trump onslaught has defined Haley in ways she never did herself.
Haley’s frustration with the Social Security attacks has been evident and is captured nicely in this scene from Jonathan Martin’s new column:
“I was standing near [Gov. CHRIS] SUNUNU at a bakery on New Hampshire’s seacoast when Haley did a Fox News satellite interview about 20 feet away. He had just boasted to me about how Haley was the only candidate ‘earning it the right way,’ yet when she grew defensive during her TV hit, he couldn’t help but whisper how he wished she parried the questions.
