Dem
51
GOP
49
We watched the returns trickle in all last night, which meant we had plenty of time to think about what they might be telling us. And our conclusion is that both Donald Trump and Nikki Haley had a poor night, while Joe Biden should be pretty pleased this morning.
Let's start with the most obvious of the three, which is Haley. Naturally, her early 6-vote lead did not hold up. With 91% of the votes in, Trump claimed 54.9% of the vote to 41.3% for Haley (resulting in roughly 12 delegates for the former, 9 for the latter). The other "active" candidate, Ryan Binkley, finished a distant seventh place, with just 0.1% of the vote, placing him behind not only Ron DeSantis and Chris Christie, but also Vivek Ramaswamy and... Mike Pence.
So, Haley lost by about 14 points. That is blowout territory; she wasn't even close to making a contest of it. And that is with all kinds of factors potentially working in her favor. The state's Republicans are pretty friendly, on the whole, to her brand of conservatism. Many independents took a Republican ballot, just so they could vote for her. She retail-politicked her heart out. And do you know how much money she, and her allied PACs, spent on advertising in the Granite State? The number is actually kind of staggering: $31 million. That's over $20 for every single resident of the state. Or, if you prefer, it's about $230 for every vote she got. It's true that Trump and his allied PACs also spent quite a bit, but nowhere near as much, with a total of about $15 million.
Naturally, Haley can't rely on most or all of these things in the primaries that are immediately upcoming. We're about to hit a run of states that are very MAGA, and where independents (in most cases) can't cross over. She won't be able to give just about any voter who wants it some face time. She certainly won't be able to spend $20/resident or $230/vote. Yes, she will win the Nevada primary, since she's the only one on the ballot. But thereafter, she'll be lucky to crack 30%. And remember, once again, that soon the states become winner-take-all.
Haley, of course, spun last night's result as a positive, declaring in her end-of-day speech that: "New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last in the nation. This race is far from over. There are dozens of states left to go." This is factually correct... excepting the part about the race being far from over. As legendary Lakers announcer Chick Hearn used to say: "The game's in the refrigerator, the door's closed, the light's out, the eggs are cooling, the butter's getting hard and the jello's jiggling." Put another way, Haley's goose is officially cooked.
At this point, there remains exactly one path for her to claim the 2024 Republican nomination: something would have to happen to Trump (health crisis, criminal conviction), and the Republican National Committee would have to turn to her as the next woman up. This is an extreme longshot, as it not only requires Trump to suffer a devastating blow of some sort, it also requires the RNC to unify behind Haley. That is a big "if" in a party where roughly half the functionaries (committee members, delegates, etc.) are MAGA and half are not. Should Trump become unavailable, the fight to pick his replacement could make the various speakership battles of the last year look like a Sunday picnic.
Nonetheless, slim a chance as it is, this is Haley's path. And so, her thinking right now should be focused on the best way to position herself as the heir apparent. If she keeps going, that certainly does entitle her to some consideration, since she would have put in the work while, say, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) and Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) did not. On the other hand, if she suffers a string of lopsided losses, then it will serve to underscore that the GOP faithful largely are not buying what she's selling. She's not going to drop out right now, of course, nor is she likely to do so anytime until after Super Tuesday. But that doesn't mean she shouldn't seriously consider it.
Moving on to Trump, it may seem strange to call him a loser when he effectively dispatched his final remaining opponent. However, as with Iowa, there is evidence of some serious cracks in the facade. To start, he took just over half of the vote, which isn't great for someone of his stature, who is effectively an incumbent. Yes, some percentage of the non-Trump vote was crossovers who are Democrats in all but name. But a large percentage of the non-Trump vote was Republicans who don't really want Trump to be their standard bearer again. Compare Trump's take to that of Joe Biden (approx. 65%), keeping in mind that Biden wasn't even on the ballot last night.
There's also some not-so-good news for Trump in the exit polls. Among voters who cast Republican ballots and who identify as moderates, Haley won by a 3-to-1 margin. Among voters who cast Republican ballots and who oppose an abortion ban, Haley won by a 2-to-1 margin. Of course, a lot of those moderates, and a lot of those pro-choice voters, aren't really Republican voters. And a sizable percentage of those who really are Republican voters will hold their noses and vote for Trump anyhow in the general. Nonetheless, Trump is operating with very small margins for error. If he's having a tough time winning moderates, and if he is compelled to adopt a stringent anti-choice position to keep the base happy, then he'll be in a precarious place.
And finally, there is Joe Biden. With a little less than 90% of the vote in, he had collected 51.5% of the vote, as compared to 19.8% for Dean Phillips and 4.7% for Marianne Williamson. However, another 14.1% of the ballots were unprocessed write-in votes. It is true that among the write-in ballots that have been processed, some small number went to "alternative" candidates like Vermin Supreme (639 votes; 0.6%), Paperboy Prince (220 votes; 0.2%), and President Boddie (94 votes; 0.1%... wait, wasn't he the corpse in Clue?). However, the very safe presumption is that most of those unprocessed write-ins are Biden votes. So, as we note above, he'll end up with something like 65% of the vote once the dust has settled.
We think this is an excellent result for Biden. First, because it would have been very easy for unhappy Democratic voters to "send a message," either by voting for one of the other candidates, or by not voting at all. And yet, nearly two-thirds of them chose, despite it requiring some extra effort, to cast a Biden ballot. To give some context, the last time there was an incumbent Democrat in the race was 2012. That year, Barack Obama took 80% of the New Hampshire vote, despite there being no alternative Democrat (the second-place finisher was Ron Paul), despite actually being on the ballot, and despite being a very popular incumbent. Obviously, 65% is not 80%, but given the different circumstances of 2024, it is a pretty decent showing.
The second reason this is an excellent result for Biden is that he gambled, and won, at least for now. That is to say, he poked New Hampshire voters in the eye a little bit, so that he could make a statement about how important Black voters are to him. Last night, he was not punished for that, since he did not suffer the embarrassment of losing to, or winning a very narrow victory over, a non-serious challenger. Time will tell if Black voters appreciate the gesture, and also if New Hampshire voters decide to punish Biden in the general. We can't really know if Biden's bet paid off until we know those two things, but at least for now, things are going according to plan for him.
Meanwhile, how much longer will Phillips and Williamson continue to soldier on? Who knows? Williamson has no money left, and isn't really campaigning. So, she can keep her ghost campaign going for a long time, if she wants, in search of attention, or selling books, or improving her aura, or whatever she's after. In 2020, she withdrew before the first primary, so she's already in uncharted territory.
As to Phillips, we've never understood his candidacy. If you accept his hard-to-believe theory of the race, he was running because it's better that even if Biden is the party's nominee, there be a real challenger for the nomination. Quite clearly, Biden is taking no notice of Phillips, nor are most Democratic voters. So much for that. This week, Phillips has flip-flopped on a near-daily basis on whether he is interested in being the No Labels candidate. So, maybe that is in his future. He's also become the favored candidate of many of the tech bros, who have redirected their money from Vivek Ramaswamy's PAC to Phillips' PAC. So, maybe Phillips will just keep riding along because he likes attention or because he's got nothing better to do. The good people of MN-03 might prefer to have their elected representative in Washington, doing his job, but who are they to dictate?
And that's the story out of New Hampshire. The next casting of ballots will be the meaningless Nevada Republican primary on February 6, followed by the almost equally meaningless Nevada Republican caucus on February 8, where Donald Trump will be taking all 26 delegates, since he's the only still-active candidate to pay the filing fee. (Z)