Haley confronted by Trump voter in final New Hampshire rally as pressure builds to quit

In her final rally before the New Hampshire primary, Nikki Haley was interrupted by a young man standing in the back of the room who asked her if she would marry him.

“Are you going to vote for me?” Haley responded.

“No,” he told her. “I’m going to vote for Trump.”

It’s a fleeting anecdote, but the exchange amounted to an unavoidable reminder of the long odds the former South Carolina governor is facing in Tuesday’s first-in-the-nation primary that could effectively crown Donald Trump as the 2024 Republican nominee.

At her final event in Salem, New Hampshire, Haley framed the GOP primary between herself and Trump as one about generational change and greater electability against President Joe Biden in November.

“We’re tired of losing. We’re tired of losing. We lost in ‘18 and ‘20. We were going to get that big red wave in ‘22. Hey Donald Trump, where the F is the red wave?” asked Gov. Chris Sununu, Haley’s most high-profile backer in the state.

Left unmentioned was the bulk of polling showing Haley staring down a double-digit defeat in the New Hampshire primary. Monday’s Suffolk University tracking poll placed Haley’s deficit at 19 points, a margin that if realized would apply pressure on her to reassess the viability of continuing her campaign through South Carolina, set more than four weeks away.

Some Haley supporters in Salem acknowledged that their chosen candidate has a difficult path forward. Dennis Kavanagh, 74, of Nashua, said that he hoped Haley could still “make it happen,” pointing to the large number of independent voters in New Hampshire.

But he also noted that Trump “has so much support in New Hampshire. It’s a tough fight.”

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If Haley can’t clinch the nomination, Kavanagh said that he would bite the bullet and vote for Trump. President Joe Biden, he said, simply wasn’t “mentally competent” enough to serve in the White House.

“You vote for the lesser of two evils,” said Kavanagh, who noted that he voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. “You’re voting for a senile old man who doesn’t know where he is or you’re voting for a loose cannon who’s a little scary. So I would go for the loose cannon.”

Others, however, said they simply won’t vote for the former president. Michelle Lisowski, 59, of Windham, said former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was her first choice for the GOP nomination. But after he dropped out of the race, she turned to Haley, who she’s hopeful will pull off a surprise upset.

“I’m going to vote for her because I don’t want Trump to win,” Lisowski, an independent, said. “If he’s the nominee, I won’t vote for him. I’ll vote Democrat.”

“He’s a lowlife,” she added. “I can’t understand what people see in him.”

Given the upper-income centrist tilt of New Hampshire — which allows nonpartisans to participate — Haley’s campaign invested the bulk of their resources here.

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Though Haley has benefited from nearly double the advertising support of Trump, that television messaging hasn’t lifted her polling numbers over the last month. While she’s shown strength among undeclared voters, several surveys have demonstrated the former president’s robust lead among registered Republicans. Suffolk found Trump capturing more than 60% of GOPers.

“Reluctant Trump voters seem to be breaking for him, which is why you’ve seen his numbers tick up a bit in the public tracking polls,” said Matt Mowers, a former GOP congressional candidate in the state.

Andrew Demers, a conservative activist in the state who is no fan of Trump, said Haley’s lack of authenticity hurt her ability to convert hardcore Republican voters.

“Is China a great friend, or an enemy of America? Should we defund the UN or should we not pull money from them? Haley said that she would mandate that social media outlets verify people by name, then during the next debate, she denied saying that. Do we need federal laws about gender surgery for minors, or should families decide? The list of her flip-flops goes on and on. Voters here can sense when someone has no authentic convictions,” Demers said.

No candidate from either party has ever won the New Hampshire primary without carrying a majority of their party’s registered voters.

In the waning days of the New Hampshire campaign, Haley’s team has attempted to manage expectations about her finish here, hoping she can pull within single digits of Trump, powered by an influx of unaffiliated voters.

Haley went on Fox News on Monday in an attempt to quash a burgeoning narrative about the end of her candidacy before New Hampshire votes,

“I’m not going to pull out because someone wants to be coronated,” she said in an interview.

But some of her supporters are crossing their fingers that a better than expected finish can jostle the narrative even if it’s still a loss.

“What’s a surprise? Five points. Six points. Seven points?,” asked Jim Rubens, a Haley supporter and member of the Grafton County GOP executive committee. “Do us a favor, wait until the vote comes in. You’ll know at 7:30, 8 p.m.”

Max Greenwood reported from Salem, N.H.

‘She has to come within single digits’: Haley allies curb New Hampshire expectations