Frosty New Hampshire primary presents diverging roads for Trump challenger

“Unassuming” is one word for New Hampshire, wedged up there between Vermont and Maine, fifth least populous state in America, steeped in a Unionist Civil War tradition, lending its name to one of the most celebrated poetry collections from its most famous son Robert Frost, a hiker’s paradise certainly and envied for its autumns and, now this: the quadrennial January settlement of presidential candidates hoping to gauge the pulse of the nation.

After an underwhelming, blizzard-defined week in Iowa, the Republican carnival moves to the Granite State for the first primary of the year and, also, for a local election which may hold the answer to the elemental question as to whether there is enough energy or willpower within the Republican Party to resist the dauntless march of Donald Trump.

In short, Nikki Haley has four days to assert herself as the only alternative to what president Joe Biden has begun to bill as an elemental battle for the definition of democracy to be waged through the summer if, as is expected, he faces Trump in the presidential election. It’s one of the reasons why everything about the 2024 election cycle feels slightly off-balance.

“You know it does feel as if we are the end of the line, which is a weird thing for any New Hampshire primary,” says Dante Scala, professor of political science and international affairs at the University of New Hampshire. He has been studying the state’s primaries since he moved there just in time for the ebullient John McCain campaign of 2000.

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“Because we are at the beginning of the process. In part, that’s due to what happened in Iowa. The political media here in the United States: they are so bored and there were hopes that Iowa might surprise. The only surprise was that Trump was even more dominant than expected and did well among all sorts of different demographic groups. It is basically a two-person race here and people are looking to see if Haley can possibly survive here and have a solid credible chance in South Carolina. But it is weird: between Iowa and New Hampshire there is usually a level of excitement. This time, it’s well, wait and see.”

That’s precisely what voters have been doing for months: waiting to see if and when Nikki Haley will unleash a no-holds barred criticism of her former mentor. Since arriving in New Hampshire, Haley has become a little more outspoken in her observations on Trump and her decision to aggregate his age with that of Joe Biden to “both 80” will sting his vanity. But between now and the primary voting on Tuesday night, she will have to go further if she is to convince the body of Republican voters waiting to be convinced that there is a viable alternative to the former president.

At a rally in Henniker on Thursday night, Haley performed to set questions with a familiar rehearsed polish but her essential message could be reduced to the fact that she is the logical choice because she is not Trump or Biden, she is not 80 years old and she has a good track record as an accountant. All of which are useful. But are they enough to rouse the undecided?

There was a glimmer when she was asked to elaborate on her view that America was not a racist country.

“When you look at the Declaration of Independence it was that men were created equal with inalienable rights,” she began.

“But I was a brown girl who grew up in a small rural town. We had plenty of racism we had to deal with, but my parents never said we lived in a racist country. And I am so thankful for that because for every brown and black child out there, if you tell them live in a racist country you are immediately telling them they don’t have a chance. I think it is important we tell all kids, look America is not perfect. We have our stains. We know that. We have too many people with our national self loathing. It is killing our country. We have got to go back to loving America. We are blessed. Because that little brown girl in that small rural town in South Carolina? She went on to become the first female minority governor in history. She then went on to become US ambassador; now she is running for president of the United States.”

In the narrow sense, it is a promising message with echoes of Obama, but in the broader sweep she again avoided the thorny subject of historical racism, a theme that is likely to recur in conversations this weekend.

Scala began lecturing in New Hampshire at a serendipitous time, arriving in time to witness the soaring profile of John McCain during his 2000 campaign. “He seemed willing to let it fly and be spontaneous. Sitting down the back of the bus with all the media, swapping stories. As an introduction, I was hooked.” Eight years later, New Hampshire was where the battle for the Democratic nomination slid from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama and, later, for McCain’s second bid for office.

“I remember going to town halls for McCain that year as he made his comeback and it was almost like a revival meeting. He was a master of it.”

Even 2016, with both Trump and Bernie Sanders emerging to buck the presumptive trends for the Democrats and Republicans respectively, held high drama. That is lacking in 2024. What fascinates Scala this year is not so much the principal actors as those who are drawn to them. He readily concedes he was one of the last to recognise the fact that Trump was for real in 2016. And when he teaches students in his classes these days, he is constantly struck by an undeniable fact.

“Trump is like Ronald Reagan in that he is the central figure of the last decade. I teach 20 year olds for a living and for half their lives Donald Trump has been the central political figure. Like Reagan in the 1980s. Since I got here, Republican candidates would always hark back to Reagan because none of them, not McCain or Bush, could recast the party in their own image.

“Who did it? Trump did it. And now it is sort of Trump’s party. And when I start to think about it that way: there are a lot of mainstream somewhat conservative Republicans and they aren’t going to put a 9ft Trump sign in their front yard. But they are happy to default to him, as a conservative Republican.”

This, then, is the formidable force which Nikki Haley must at least damage if she is to make good on her promises. Donald Trump is content to move between lacerating attacks and indifference, again declining to meet for a formal debate. It is up to Nikki Haley, over the next six days, to no longer hedge her bets if this moment – two roads diverged, yellow woods, all that – is to amount to anything significant.

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