New Hampshire primary live: Donald Trump aims to see off Nikki Haley in second Republican vote

Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump at a rally in Laconia, New Hampshire.

LIVE – Updated at 10:39

Stakes high as Haley seeks to chase down seemingly insurmountable lead of former president.

10:39

Campaigning last night, Nikki Haley insisted that today’s vote was “not a coronation” for Donald Trump as the Republican nominee.

Interviewed by Leland Vittert, Haley said viewing her performance in New Hampshire as make or break for her campaign had never been fair. She told him:

It has never been fair. I said I needed to be strong in Iowa. We started at 2%. We ended at 20%. I need to be stronger in New Hampshire. I think we’ll do that tomorrow. And then I need to be stronger than that in South Carolina.

The one thing we have to remember is Donald Trump only won with one and a half percent of the vote in Iowa, 56,000 people voted for him out of a state of three million people. That is not representative of the country.

And you’ve got the political class saying, ‘Oh, it’s got to be him. No. This is not a coronation. This is an election.

You go state by state. You are trying to get representation of real normal people. And that is what we are focused on. We’re going to take it one step at a time.

The South Carolina primary, in Haley’s home state, is scheduled for 24 February.

10:32

Two New Hampshire polls released in the lasat couple of days didn’t carry as much encouragement for Nikki Haley as she might have hoped, although with Florida governor Ron DeSantis ending his presidential campaign at the last minute, there may be some wriggle room in the numbers.

On Sunday NBC News, the Boston Globe and Suffolk University put Donald Trump 19 points clear of Haley, at 55% to 36% support. On Monday, the Washington Post and Monmouth University put Trump at 52% support in New Hampshire, to 34% for Haley.

10:15

If you fancy something audio to set the scene, then today’s episode of Today in Focus is about the New Hampshire primary and the 2024 US election race.

The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith, speaks to Michael Safi, and explains how New Hampshire could deliver a win that helps Donald Trump seal up the votes he needs for the nomination before his numerous court appearances can seriously dent his candidacy.

You can listen to it here: Today in Focus – New Hampshire primary: the last chance to stop Trump?

10:07

Voting has actually begun in New Hampshire, because Dixville Notch traditionally opens its polls at midnight and declares the result as quickly as possible afterwards. It is a tiny electorate – just six people voted. They all went for Nikki Haley

The New York Times notes that “the event is as much a press spectacle as it is a serious exercise in democracy”, adding that “there were more than ten journalists for every voter, including representatives from major TV networks, newspapers, wire services and foreign press from over a dozen countries.”

78-year-old Tom Tillotson told the New York Times “The real message here is ‘get off your butts, get out there and vote.’ Everybody. Republicans and Democrats.”

And no election is complete without pictures of dogs taking part in the democratic process, and thankfully Dixville Notch delivered on that score already.

Nikki Haley chases an upset in bitter New Hampshire face-off with Trump

10:02Lauren Gambino

Lauren Gambino is in Manchester, New Hampshire for the Guardian

Republicans are predicting record turnout – and good weather, seen as a possible boon to Nikki Haley who is relying more heavily on voters who don’t typically participate in the party’s primary.

The stakes could not be higher for Haley. She is barnstorming the state, from the “suburbs to the seacoast”, trying to persuade anti-Trump independents and open-minded conservatives to back her long-shot bid.

Donald Trump by contrast has been in and out of the state, holding raucous evening rallies between appearances in court. New Hampshire propelled Trump to the Republican nomination in 2016 after he came in second in the Iowa caucuses. This year, Trump hopes to notch a victory large enough to effectively extinguish Haley’s campaign.

For much of her nearly year-long campaign, Haley carefully avoided Trump, instead drawing implicit contrasts with calls for a “new generation” of leaders in Washington and a proposal to instate cognitive tests for older politicians. But in the final days before New Hampshire’s primary, she went after him more aggressively, questioning his mental fitness and accusing him of cozying up to dictators and autocrats.

Trump responded with insults and misrepresentations while accusing her campaign of relying on the support of “globalists” and liberals to win. In an ugly series of social media posts, he revived the birtherism conspiracy that she was ineligible to be president because her parents were not US citizens when she was born. This is false; Haley, the South Carolina-born daughter of immigrants from India, is eligible. Trump also appeared to mock her Indian ancestry by referring to – and mispelling – her given name, Nimarata. Haley has always gone by her middle name, Nikki.

Haley and her allies insist she has a path forward even if she doesn’t pull off an upset. Improving on her third-place finish in Iowa would be enough. But if she can’t win in New Hampshire, with an electorate seen as far more friendly to her brand of Republicanism, analysts said it will be hard to make the pitch to voters – and donors – that she can win anywhere else.

Welcome and opening summary …

10:00

Welcome to our live US politics coverage on a milestone day in the race for the 2024 US presidential election, with the opening day of the primary season. Here are the headlines …

New Hampshire will hold its first-in-the nation primary in what may be the last chance Republicans have to stop Donald Trump from running away with the nomination, as Nikki Haley chases an upset.

Just over a week after the former president’s record-setting victory in the Iowa caucuses, he is now locked in an increasingly bitter showdown with Haley, who has staked her candidacy on a strong showing in the more moderate New Hampshire.

Trump leads by double-digit margins but is considered more vulnerable in the state, where independent voters make up nearly 40% of the electorate and can choose to vote in either party’s primary.

A shadow presidential primary is also taking place. Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota, and Marianne Williamson, an author and self-help guru who ran for president in 2020, are mounting longshot presidential bids. Joe Biden’s name won’t feature on the ballot paper.

The primary comes with the background noise of intervention against Yemen’s Houthis in the Red Sea rumbling on. The US has carried out its eighth round of airstrikes. A Pentagon statement said the bombing was “proportionate and necessary”.

I am Martin Belam, and I will be with you for the next few hours. You can contact me at [email protected].