What to watch for in New Hampshire, the second contest of 2024

Republican candidates for president landed in New Hampshire this week after the bitterly cold Iowa caucuses ended in a landslide victory for Donald Trump early Monday evening.

Mr Trump’s two remaining competitive rivals, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, are now set up for their second showdown with the frontrunner in New Hampshire, which votes in a “semi-open” primary style which allows the state’s sizable population of independent voters to participate in the respective major party primaries.

This is the second chance for either of them to prove that this entire exercise isn’t just one long, drawn-out coronation. That was certainly the vibe in Iowa, where Mr Trump ran away with 51 per cent of the vote and the lion’s share of Republican delegates as his opponents battled to break 20 per cent. Ms Haley, once thought to have surpassed Mr DeSantis’s support levels in the state, settled for third place. Vivek Ramaswamy, who had told The Independent that he would “prove the media wrong” and shock the country, dropped out after a distant fourth-place showing.

In New Hampshire, the fortunes of the Trump-alternatives are reversed. Mr DeSantis is noncompetitive in the state, according to all available polling which puts him just above the number Mr Ramaswamy was registering before he departed the race. Ms Haley, however, is battling close to Mr Trump’s polling average; she still trails him, by single digits in a few polls and by larger margins in more. None show the likelihood of an Iowa-style blowout, however, which she hopes will invigorate her campaign as the primary landscape shifts south towards Nevada and South Carolina, the state where she served as governor.

Given the way the race is looking right now, six days out, we can