Donald Trump won Republicans’ presidential primary in New Hampshire on Tuesday, though his share of the vote was closer to his nearest rival (Nikki Haley) than some might have expected. By the following morning, a leading margin of about 11 percent was reported for Trump, who remains generally on track to win Republicans’ presidential nod for this year’s elections but clearly doesn’t have the entirety of potential support from Republican voters or those simply open to a Republican actually locked down.
Trump was taking things poorly. Close to midnight after his Tuesday win, Trump took to his personal account on his social media site Truth Social to complain about commentary from Kayleigh McEnany, a former official on Trump’s own presidential team who’s now a presence on Fox News. She’d encouraged the former president to pursue expanding the bloc of voters behind his campaign as he moves forward to an expected nomination and an anticipated rematch with Joe Biden. Trump’s preference is apparently keeping things as-is: his way or the highway, as the saying goes.
And this is what he was doing in the hours after an election win. “I don’t need any advice from RINO Kayleigh McEnany on Fox. Just had a GIANT VICTORY over a badly failing candidate, “Birdbrain,” and she’s telling me what I can do better. Save your advice for Nikki!” Trump said.
“RINO” stands for “Republican in name only” and is used as a pejorative to deem targets not committedly “Republican” enough.
Polling suggests that Trump will go on to lose New Hampshire in balloting this fall if the expected rematch with Biden materializes. A recent survey by Marist College found Biden leading Trump in the state by seven percentage points when one-on-one, which could be closest to the actual results since precedent suggests candidates outside the two major parties actually getting very small shares of the vote when the rhetorical rubber meets the road, no matter what the polls are saying in the meantime. Trump came close to winning New Hampshire in 2016, falling further behind in 2020.
