Upbeat Haley vows to press on but prospects against Trump look bleak

Nikki Haley was surprisingly peppy as she took the stage in New Hampshire on Tuesday, considering she had just suffered her second bruising defeat by Donald Trump. Trump beat Haley by 11 points in New Hampshire, a victory that came on the heels of the former president’s 30-point win in the Iowa caucuses.

Undaunted by the reality of her losses, Haley pledged that she would continue on in the Republican presidential primary. Haley voiced confidence about her performance in her home state of South Carolina, which will hold its Republican primary on 24 February.

“New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last in the nation,” Haley told supporters in Concord. “This race is far from over. There are dozens of states left to go, and the next one is my sweet state of South Carolina.”

But everyone not named Nikki Haley appears all too ready to declare the Republican primary over. With Trump winning a historic majority of votes in Iowa and New Hampshire, Haley’s path to the nomination appears increasingly difficult – if not impossible. In his victory speech on Tuesday, Trump belittled her efforts to downplay her losses and mocked her decision to stay in the race.

“She had a very bad night,” Trump said. “She came in third [in Iowa], and she’s still hanging around.”

In a rare moment of agreement between Trump and Joe Biden, the president made clear that he would turn his attention to the general election in November, effectively writing off any chance of a Haley comeback.

“It is now clear that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. And my message to the country is the stakes could not be higher,” Biden said in a statement. “I want to say to all those independents and Republicans who share our commitment to core values of