Does Nikki Haley own a route forward after New Hampshire?

As we've been reporting CBS News is projecting Donald Trump will win the New Hampshire Republican primary Trump spoke Tuesday night to a room full of supporters celebrating his third straight primary win in the gr Granite State he mocked his only remaining opponent Nikki Haley saying she quote had a very bad night CBS News is.

Projecting Nikki Hy will still get at least nine delegates from New Hampshire let's bring back in chief chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett major there has been you've heard it 18 billion times a theory a lot of liberals that there would be an emperor has no Clos moment with Donald Trump that somebody would just point out a weakness.

He has and then it would all fall into a new truth I can imagine that fantasy is now being kicked around in with respect to Nikki Haley is there any room in the party that you understand or or I should say give us a sense of how difficult the hill is for Nikki Haley to get the nomination even though she says she's going to carry.

On okay the nomination is always about delegate acquisition John and you acquire delegates by winning primaries in caucuses and in every race on the map currently Donald Trump is the projected and prohibitive front runner Nikki Haley is running an Insurgent campaign to try to take the nomination away from Donald Trump when many in the Republican Party.

Have already made up the mind he's going to win that nomination so how does she do that you have to hold what you have as an advantage and you have to build from there you have to scale if you will to to talk about it in Tech terms so what does Nikki Haley have on her side she has temperament and she has an argument about electability what's.

Interesting in the exit polling data for Trump supporters 34% said he has values like mine 27% of Nikki Haley supporters said she has values like theirs what does that mean among Republicans who are generally speaking conservative she does okay in that values metric she has to build on that hold the temperament and then Express to South Carolinians and.

Future Primary in caucus states that she's also a fighter who can achieve results for them that is the big space that Nikki Haley currently cannot and does not occupy Trump has that fight for you produce for you entity within the Republican Party Nikki Haley has to try to take that away from Trump and that's going to be really The Contours of the.

South Carolina Republican debate Trump will say as president I fought for you and I produce for you Nikki Haley can say I fought for you as Governor but not as recently is Trump she's going to have to find a way to say not only do I fight for you and you can believe that I fight for you but I can produce results that she likes to say you can not only be.

Proud of but that make your life better you have covered Donald Trump and seen the identity connection that a lot of his voters have and a lot of those voters participate in these in these contests it that connection is more durable than just one's position on taxes or immigration um you know give us a little bit more of your wisdom on on.

On how hard that argument is for Haley to make because of the this personal connection so many of Trump's voters have to him right we've talked about the possibilities for Nikki Haley what are the realities around Donald Trump and his relationship to the Republican Party one he has remade it in His image he has.

Taken that fighter approach that America first language and basically made it the default position of the Republican Party that is a not insignificant political achievement and a durable one add to that John the sense that Trump supporters have that he is being unfairly prosecuted in the various cases he has to deal with be they civil or.

Criminal and that is a very powerful Dynamic it proved itself in Iowa it's proved itself resilient here Nikki Haley began to refer to that tonight for the first time in sort of more starkly contrasting ways he has problems they're legal problems they're not going going away one of the things that former president Trump wanted to achieve here.

In New Hampshire was if not a knockout punch the sense that his path to the GOP nomination is inevitable and essentially say political success immunizes me from any of my legal problems Nikki Haley is going to have to say actually it doesn't former president Trump political success is just that it doesn't immunize you from your legal problems they're going.

To continue and they're going to be a part of the Republican conversation and she's going to have to draw that point of contrast in ways to pull that sense of rallying around former president Trump to say wait a minute maybe we got to pause and think about that and Nikki Haley might be an alternative that is not only safer because she has no legal.

Issues but might be more electable in a general election it's a complicated argument she doesn't have much time to make it but that is the terrain that is open to her boy that's so smart that point about immunization we saw Senator Corin of Texas say that he was endorsing Donald Trump and he said the voters have spoken many of his endorsers who want to.

Alide or or get around some of the very obvious difficulties that former president Trump has will respond to a question you might ask about for example his responsibility for trying to overthrow an election and they will say well the voters have spoken uh using just that immunization you talked about as a final question major what kind of.

Race do we have now um I'm going to make you do what I made ad O'Keefe do uh so what's your lead of uh the magazine story you would have written when we first knew each other that's right it would be this Donald Trump hasn't had a one-on-one person oners race for the Republican nomination in his political history does.

He know how to wage that fight that is the overall meta question out of New Hampshire it's one-on-one can he win when it's just one other candidate and not dividing in many different ways the anti-trump vote can he take what he has and pick up on my very first point about Nikki Haley's challenge hold and build that's the a challenge for president.

Trump he's well positioned to do that better well better position than Nikki Haley is but it's a real race we'll put it in the magazine no notes major thanks very much Major Garrett you got it let's go back to our CS news data desk our executive director of Elections and surveys Anthony salvanto is here hello again Anthony hello John how goad tell.

Me well do you have something on your mind or uh I was just going to uh put in context something you and major were just talking about because look what's a primary night without showing some delegate math right this is delegates to date and this big space here represents how far we have to go to the 1215 that are needed for the nomination now we.

Know that primaries are about momentum and about attention especially the early ones but just so everybody is reminded we're a long way and we haven't really handed out a lot of delegates yet John how different is I asked you this at the beginning of the night I might as well ask you at the end the New Hampshire electorate now that we know the shape of.

It and what it looks like and the Iowa electorate and does that help us understand um the Republican party of today and the and the one in the future contests that we'll be watching it does um here's one example of the difference we talked about how Donald Trump won Republicans and new and Nikki Haley did better with Independence um here's how.

That breaks out right in Iowa it was dominated by people who called themselves Republicans in New Hampshire it was almost even between people who called themselves Republicans and those who called Independents this is important for two reasons one is it underscores the identity of all this the fact that when someone identifies as a.

Republican these days by and large they look for loyalty or lack or at least lack of criticism of Donald Trump and that personal connection remains but the independence as as Illustrated here in New Hampshire sets up a different test and that is that if you imagine the electorate in the general election as something of at least a need to get into.

What we call the middle then you have to talk about independence and you have to talk about appeal to Independence and that's where Nikki Haley will at least make her argument bolstered by New Hampshire and the fact that she does better than Joe Biden in the National polling last point Republicans don't buy that they still think Donald Trump is.

The guy to beat your yeah that's such an excellent point uh and partially they don't buy it because of that identity reason because for many of them he's a winner always a winner never a loser ever uh even when he did lose Anthony final question is there any way to any wisdom in looking at how dominant Trump was in 2016 and how successful he's been.

This evening to tell us anything about whether Republicans in that part of the party have soured on him or changed their minds or anything we can learn from comparing those two votes yeah it's different in the sense that it shows you how the party has coalesced around him in these eight years in 2016 and sometimes I look at this map and I can't.

Believe it's been eight years um we projected this race look Donald Trump obviously he didn't get a majority of the vote that year a more fractured field but he did comparably better with you know other kinds of groups other than just Republicans in that one he won a lot of of area he won a lot of geographic territory just as he did.

Tonight but he really had more support among at the time more Independents a little more moderates this is very different now that base and now we measure That Base as people who identify themselves as part of the Maga movement so you you know you fast forward then to today and he's got a higher percentage but the story in that is that it comes.

From a different place it comes from more loyal Republicans conservatives magga voters that's the core of the party right now Anthony salvanto a pleasure as always thank you so much Anthony

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