“If there was a state she could win in … it was this state, and she still lost by 11 points,” Arnie Arnesen says.
Former President Donald Trump won New Hampshire’s primary on Tuesday with 54% of the vote to 43% for former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, the last major challenger to Trump’s Republican bid. “If there was a state she could win in, in the entire United States, it was this state, and she still lost by 11 points,” says Arnie Arnesen, longtime New Hampshire radio and TV host and former politician. “She doesn’t have a future.” On the Democratic side, President Biden won his party’s primary as a write-in candidate after the state refused to cooperate with Democratic National Committee rules, and therefore did not win any delegates from New Hampshire. Refusing to recognize the state’s primary and not campaigning in the state was “a stupid political mistake” by Democrats that allowed Trump’s claims to go uncontested, says Arnesen. “This is an invitation to fascism.”
AMY GOODMAN: Former President Donald Trump won New Hampshire’s primary on Tuesday by over 11 percentage points, a vote of 54%, defeating former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who got 43%. Haley was the last major challenger to Trump after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ended his presidential bid Sunday night and threw his support to Trump. Trump is the first nonincumbent Republican presidential candidate to win races in both Iowa and New Hampshire since both states began leading the election calendar in 1976. In his victory speech Tuesday, Trump criticized Nikki Haley for losing New Hampshire and vowed he would beat President Biden in November.
AMY GOODMAN: Nikki Haley will pass on the Nevada caucuses February 8th and put all her efforts and millions of dollars into ad buys for February 24th primary in her home state of South Carolina. In her concession speech last night in New Hampshire, she vowed to continue her campaign.
AMY GOODMAN: On the Democratic side, President Joe Biden won his party’s primary but did so as a write-in candidate. He didn’t campaign or appear on the ballot, after the Democratic National Committee, supported by Biden, voted to start its primary season next month in South Carolina. New Hampshire’s state government, controlled by Republicans, would not comply with the DNC’s new rules and scheduled the primary for last night. As a result, Biden did not win any delegates from New Hampshire. His final vote count is still being tallied. Congressmember Dean Phillips came second with about 20% of the vote, with Marianne Williamson placing third with about 5%.
For more, we’re joined by Arnie Arnesen, longtime radio and talk show host in New Hampshire, former New Hampshire legislator and Democratic gubernatorial candidate in the ’92 elections. She’s host of The Attitude on WNHN-FM in Concord, New Hampshire.
Arnie, welcome back to Democracy Now! I think you were our first guest in 1996, when we were covering the New Hampshire primary.
ARNIE ARNESEN: Shhh, don’t tell anyone. It’s aging both of us. And I’ve been covering presidential politics with you, Amy, for such a long time, as well. So thank you for having me back.
AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can first respond to Trump’s win, the significance of that, and also explain how the New Hampshire primary works, with independents, with Republicans? He got something like, what, three-quarters of the Republican vote, but I think Nikki Haley beat him when it came to independents.
ARNIE ARNESEN: So, let me — we’re such a quirky place. We actually have a law in New Hampshire — and that law was actually written in 1975 — that the New Hampshire primary has to come one week before any other primary in the country. So, when the Democrats, for example, decided to go to South Carolina, we couldn’t change the law. The law said we have to have a primary, and the primary was yesterday. Republicans kept the same calendar, so, therefore, Republicans had an “official” primary, and the Democrats had an “unofficial” primary. But the law was, we were going to have a primary by hook or by crook. We couldn’t change it. The Republicans control the Governor’s Office, the House, the Senate. They weren’t going to rewrite the law. It was beneficial to them, the Republicans. So, again, that’s one of the reasons why Donald Trump had the only official primary, and there was a write-in for Joe Biden.
So, now let me also explain something else. There are sort of three groups in New Hampshire: Republicans, Democrats and something called undeclareds. Undeclareds are actually the largest registered group in New Hampshire. They’re over 40%. And as a result of the undeclareds, in New Hampshire, if there is a election, undeclareds in the primary have a choice: They can pick up a Democratic ballot, or they can pick up a Republican ballot, on the day of the primary. There was no reason to pick up a Democratic ballot, because what’s the point? You were writing in Joe Biden.
