Data from victory over Nikki Haley shows former US president still needs to win over independent voters
Donald Trump sailed to victory over Nikki Haley in New Hampshire’s Republican primary on Tuesday, and two things are clear in the data. First, Trump’s base still loves him and votes for him. Second, he underperformed among voters outside his Maga movement.
The second point will be pored over by Trump’s strategists as they focus on another campaign to win back the White House.
Trump was expected to score highly among Republican voters without college degrees in lower-income areas — and he did. But he performed worse among the kind of voters he is likely to need if he is to win November’s general election.
Independents heavily favoured Haley on Tuesday, according to the exit polls from New Hampshire. And she fared a bit better in towns with more independents than elsewhere, according to analysis of the results. Trump’s vote share trended slightly lower in those areas.
Also significant was just how concentrated Trump’s support in New Hampshire has become — a trend that allowed him to run up his tally in areas where he did well in 2016. On the contrary, Haley won towns in more moderate areas of the state that Trump claimed in 2016, including the state capital Concord.
If repeated nationwide, this could be especially important in a general election that is decided not in the partisan areas of the country, but the swing states. In a general election, Trump will not need more votes from states already friendly to him. He will need them from undecided areas — and New Hampshire suggests this could be a problem.
https://www.ft.com/content/ec5f680d-01e8-4170-914b-28c0e08b3aee