The New Hampshire primary is on. Here’s the latest.

 

Maggie Astor

Chris Cameron

Updated

Jan. 23, 2024, 2:11 p.m. ET24 minutes ago

24 minutes ago

Maggie Astor and Chris Cameron

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/01/23/us/new-hampshire-primary

 

The New Hampshire primary is on. Here’s the latest.

New Hampshire voters streamed into polling sites on Tuesday as the candidates and their campaigns made last-minute appeals in the first presidential primary of 2024.

 

Nikki Haley started the morning at a high school in Hampton, N.H., and she was expected to visit several more voting locations. Former President Donald J. Trump was on the ground in Londonderry, N.H., and his campaign dispatched surrogates, including Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, across the state.

 

On the Democratic side, Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota was barnstorming polling locations in his long-shot quest against President Biden, who has a large lead in polls despite not being on the ballot in New Hampshire. Mr. Biden’s supporters were also outside precincts, urging voters to write in his name even though he is formally skipping the primary after New Hampshire leapfrogged the Democratic National Committee’s new schedule of early-voting states.

 

The race for the Republican nomination, once 14 candidates strong, has narrowed to Mr. Trump, who faces 91 felony charges and is dominating in national polls, and Ms. Haley, the former United Nations ambassador and governor of South Carolina. New Hampshire is Ms. Haley’s best, perhaps last chance to beat Mr. Trump — it’s a moderate state that allows its many independent voters to participate in the primary.

 

Trump supporters suggested that the race should be over if he won New Hampshire. “I hope Trump slaughters her,” Connie Toussaint, 91, said outside her polling place in Lancaster.

 

Ms. Haley’s campaign put out a memo early on Tuesday that sought to blunt the sense of inevitability surrounding Mr. Trump’s campaign. She vowed to stay in the race even if a majority of New Hampshire voters did not choose her. “We aren’t going anywhere,” her campaign manager said.

 

Mr. Trump, for his part, said as he visited voters at a polling place in Londonderry that he did not care if Ms. Haley stayed in the race or not, because he would eventually win the nomination anyway. “I’m very confident,” he said.

 

Here’s what else to know:

At least anecdotally, it looks like Republicans’ predictions of high turnout Tuesday could be spot on, though official numbers will not be known right away. But our colleagues were seeing long lines at some polling places, and election officials at some other locations said their sites seemed busy. High turnout would be a change from Iowa, where the showing for the Republican caucuses last week was anemic.

 

Even a victory for Ms. Haley in New Hampshire would be just the first step in an arduous path to the Republican nomination. The most fertile ground for her is likely to be in states, like New Hampshire, that allow independent voters to participate in primaries. But in the next state that fits that bill — Michigan, which votes Feb. 27 — Ms. Haley is polling below 20 percent.

 

Two members of the powerful Durst real estate family sued the centrist group No Labels, accusing it of being dishonest with its donors. The lawsuit, filed in state court in New York on Tuesday, said No Labels had pulled a “bait and switch” with donors, seeking money for a bipartisan governing group but then financing a third-party presidential candidacy.

 

Michael Gold, Alyce McFadden, Jazmine Ulloa and Neil Vigdor co