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New Hampshire allows independents to vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary — and with MAGA loyalists dominating the Republican Party, any challenger to MAGA leader Donald Trump would need to expand the tent and get some of those independent votes in any realistic push for the GOP nomination.
Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is the only GOP challenger left standing with the primaries a day away, and while Haley can’t — for her reputation’s sake — openly court those independent voters (or Democrats who might operate as independents to influence the GOP outcome), she still has to hope they come out for her.
One thing that presumably would be bad for Haley in this circumstance is if the President of the United States called all the New Hampshire Democrats and told them not to vote at all, since it would help Donald Trump, his chief rival.
[The deepfake delivers a relatively convincing Biden-like voice smartly employing the word “malarkey,” a favorite of Biden’s, to help proclaim its authenticity.]
That’s what happened, too, but it wasn’t really Joe Biden on the call. Instead voters received a robocall recorded message, sent by an as-yet-unidentified actor, that was a computer-generated imitation of Biden’s voice telling voters to stay home on Tuesday.
