Jan. 24 (UPI) — President Joe Biden won the New Hampshire Democratic primary as a write-in candidate while former President Donald Trump finished ahead of Nikki Haley on the Republican side Tuesday.
Trump declared victory at about 9 p.m. EST with 21% of votes recorded. He was joined on stage by former candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., as he downplayed Haley’s performance.
He also falsely claimed that he won New Hampshire in the 2016 and 2020 elections, which he did not.
“She didn’t win. She lost,” Trump said of Haley. “She had a very bad night.”
Much of Trump’s victory speech was dedicated to deriding Haley.
Haley congratulated Trump shortly before he delivered his victory speech. By 11 p.m. EST, NBC News and CBS News also called the primary for Trump. By midnight, Trump carried about 54% of votes compared to Haley’s 43%. The vote count put Trump about 26,000 votes ahead with 134,595 with 75% of votes counted.
“I have news for all of them,” Haley told a crowd in Concord, N.H. “New Hampshire is the first in the nation. It is not the last in the nation.”
Nachama Soloveichik, Haley campaign’s communications director, remarked on Trump’s victory speech comments in a campaign email on Tuesday.
“His angry rant was filled with grievances and offered the American people nothing about his vision for our country’s future,” Soloveichik said. “This is why so many voters want to move on from Trump’s chaos and are rallying to Nikki Haley’s new generation of conservative leadership.”
New Hampshire awards 22 delegates based on the portion of votes candidates earn.
On the other side of the political aisle in the state, the Democratic primary was an “overwhelming victory” for Biden, according to state party chairman Ray Buckley. Biden did not appear on the primary ballot with Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., and author Marianne Williamson.
A campaign to write-in Biden delivered more than 33,000 votes for the president with about 41% of votes tallied. Phillips received about 9,500 votes.
“Despite President Biden’s absence from the ballot, Granite Staters still turned out in robust numbers to show their support for the great work that the Biden-Harris administration has done to grow the economy, protect reproductive freedoms and defend our democracy,” Buckley said in a statement. “Once again, New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary made history — and we are proud as ever.”
Delegates are not expected to be seated from the Democratic primary. The Democratic National Committee has ruled that South Carolina’s Feb. 3 primary will be the first in the nation. An official from the Write-In Joe Biden campaign told UPI an agreement may still be made to seat New Hampshire’s delegates at the national convention.
