Both Decision Desk HQ and Fox News have projected that Donald Trump has won the New Hampshire GOP presidential primary, with about 22 percent of the ballots counted.
As reflected in the graphic below (the time says 5:12 PM only because I'm on Pacific time), as of 8:12 PM Eastern time Trump had 54.8 percent of the vote to 44.5 percent for Haley.
Haley placed all of her effort into New Hampshire after grinding out a third-place finish in Iowa. As we reported last week, her big donors signaled that they're ready to bail if she doesn't win New Hampshire or come in a very close second. Her effort to come in a very close second was helped by the departure of both Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis after the Iowa primary.
“I would still like to see her get somewhere, but the mountain she has to climb is enormous,” Andy Sabin, a New York businessman and Haley fundraiser, told CNBC. “As much as I like Haley, I don’t even know what Trump could do to stop himself right now.”
Several Haley fundraisers who spoke to CNBC conceded that, unless she gets a very close second to Trump or manages to pull off an upset win in New Hampshire, the race could effectively be over for her after that.
New Hampshire “is critical. If she wins there, and she can, it will be a long primary season,” said Eric Levine, an attorney and bundler for Haley.
It remains to be seen just how close she can come to Trump's numbers, but it doesn't seem that Haley has a path forward after this loss.
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