Trump’s wins underscore his strengths – and weaknesses

Donald Trump’s dominant performance in the New Hampshire primary confirms what already seemed clear – that the former president appears headed toward his third straight Republican nomination. 

But embedded in Tuesday’s 11-point victory over Nikki Haley, the former president’s only remaining major rival for the GOP nomination, were some flashing red lights for Mr. Trump’s prospects in November, when he is likely to face President Joe Biden again.

In short, Mr. Trump is both strong and weak as a general election candidate. He engenders fierce loyalty among his “Make America Great Again” base and already has lined up nearly the entire Republican establishment in Washington behind him. At the same time, a not-insignificant portion of the GOP electorate is leery of another Trump nomination, as seen in the New Hampshire results. And many independent voters – who may decide the winner in November – are deeply opposed to his candidacy.

Overall, Mr. Trump beat Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, 54% to 43%. That would typically be seen as a solid win in an open primary – that is, a contest with no incumbent running. “You’d say, ‘Wow, this is someone who has a chunk of the party,’” says Chris Galdieri, a political scientist at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.

But Mr. Trump is in many ways “running as a quasi-incumbent seeking another term,” Professor Galdieri adds – which casts the results in a different light. “What if Joe Biden had performed like this last night?”

As a battleground state, New Hampshire in some ways presents a good approximation of the national electorate. In that context, the exit polls showed Mr. Trump’s weakness among self-identified independents, who made up 44% of voters who turned out for Tuesday’s Republican primary. Ms. Haley won 58% of that cohort and beat Mr. Trump among college graduates 56% to 42%. 

Still, Mr. Trump beat Ms. Haley among two other key demographics: women (51% to 47%) and suburban voters (55% to 42%). Female suburban voters are seen as a crucial battleground demographic – a cohort that could swing the November election.

On Tuesday, “what Trump needed to do in some ways was simple: Get conservatives out to vote,” says Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire. “It was Haley who was trying to duct tape this weird coalition of voters together who don’t have a lot in common.” 

That coalition included some Democrats who had reregistered as Republicans to vote for her, as well as voters registered as “undeclared” – both legal moves, but not a big enough base of support to win in a GOP primary contest. 

For Mr. Biden, too, Tuesday’s results contained some positives. The president won the Democratic primary easily as a write-in candidate, after the national party committee opted to skip New Hampshire and make South Carolina its first official nominating contest. Mr. Biden didn’t campaign here, but Democratic activists staged a robust write-in campaign. The president beat Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota 54% to 19% in a preliminary count, as write-in ballots continue being processed by hand. 

But New Hampshire had some warning signs for the president. Some 10% of those who voted in the Democratic primary said that they would not support Mr. Biden if he’s the nominee. 

The president also faces continuing challenges with the left flank of his party. On Tuesday, at an event in suburban Virginia focused on reproductive rights – a strong issue for Democrats – protesters opposed to U.S. support for Israel in the war in Gaza interrupted the president more than a dozen times, shouting “genocide Joe.” 

The main show Tuesday, however, was the Trump-Haley smackdown. And Team Biden is suiting up, signaling that it sees the general election as game on.  

Two top Biden White House aides – Jen O’Malley Dillon and Mike Donilon – are effectively taking over the president’s reelection campaign. Ms. Dillon ran Mr. Biden’s successful 2020 bid, and Mr. Donilon, a longtime Biden insider and speechwriter, was another key 2020 adviser. 

For now, Mr. Trump has to focus on the coming primaries, where he appears to be in a strong position. In independent-heavy New Hampshire, Ms. Haley got the head-to-head contest she wanted after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dropped out, but still couldn’t pull off an upset. After losing the vast majority of self-identified Republicans to the former president, Ms. Haley’s path forward looks far more daunting.

Yet Ms. Haley is vowing to battle on in her home state of South Carolina, where she served as governor and which holds the next Republican primary, Feb. 24. In his New Hampshire victory speech, Mr. Trump did little to hide his irritation, slamming his former ambassador to the United Nations as an “imposter.” 

How long Ms. Haley can keep her campaign alive is an open question. The answer is likely to center on how long her money holds out, both in her campaign treasury and in the super political action committee supporting her. One reason to stay in as long as possible, supporters say, is that she could step in if an unexpected event were to derail Mr. Trump’s bid late in the cycle. The former president is facing 91 felony counts in four criminal cases.

According to exit polls, the majority of voters in New Hampshire said they believed Mr. Trump would be fit for the presidency even if convicted of a crime, by 54-42%. Among those who said he would not be fit, 83% voted for Ms. Haley, while 13% voted for Mr. Trump – suggesting at least some portion of the former president’s supporters could change their minds, depending on what happens.

For the voters of Pembroke, New Hampshire, simply engaging in the quadrennial exercise of voting in the nation’s first primary was itself cause for enthusiasm. At the local public high school, Democrats and Republicans alike freely discussed their choices with a reporter. 

“I’m looking for somebody to change the way our government functions,” said Michael Johns, a Trump voter. “All the debt, all the wars, it’s time to stop that.” 

But another voter, who said he cast his ballot for Ms. Haley, had a different take. “I’m not a Trump fan,” said Scott, who declined to give his last name. “His rhetoric brings chaos.”