New Hampshire and Iowa reveal broader weaknesses for Trump

For weeks, Donald J. Trump has swept through Iowa and New Hampshire without breaking a sweat, eliminating rivals for the Republican nomination and soaking up the adoration of crowds convinced he would be the next president of the United States .

But as Trump marches steadily toward his party's nomination, a harsher reality awaits him.

Outside the soft bubble of the Republican primaries, Trump's campaign faces lingering vulnerabilities that make his nomination a significant risk for his party. These weaknesses were laid bare Tuesday in New Hampshire, where independents, college-educated voters and Republicans unwilling to dismiss his legal danger voted in large numbers for his rival, Nikki Haley.

Trump still won easily. The number of voters opposed to his bid was no greater than the number of Republicans clamoring for him to return to power. But the results, delivered by more than 310,000 voters in a politically divided state, highlighted the problems Trump faces as the presidential race leaves the MAGA world and enters a broader electorate, one that won him less than four years ago turned down.

“If I have people come to me who voted for Reagan in '76 and have been conservative all their lives and say they don't want to vote for Trump again, that's a problem,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said. Florida in his speech Tuesday. an interview with Blaze TV, a conservative media company, just a few days after he ended his own campaign and endorsed Mr. Trump. “So he has to figure out a way to fix that.”

President Biden would face his own challenges in a rematch of the 2020 contest. Unlike four years ago, the 81-year-old Biden is deeply disliked by Mr. Biden, and most Americans disapprove of his job performance. Four years older than Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden faces deep skepticism about his age and struggles to hold on to the coalition of voters that fueled his first victory. He has turned to issues like abortion rights and democracy, themes that resonate among his base, independents and even some moderate Republicans.

But like Mr. Trump, he is facing some doubts within his own party. Immigration, inflation and his support of Israel in the Gaza war have eroded his support among young voters, black and Latino voters, and liberals.

“The general election is really starting now, and you have the two most unpopular political leaders going against each other,” said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster. “These are elections of the lesser of two evils.”

However, Trump's problems go back further. His takeover of the Republican Party in 2016 repelled moderate and independent parties in the suburbs, and there is little evidence that he has found a way to draw them back.

In New Hampshire, 44 percent of Republican primaries were independent: Ms. Haley won most of them, 58 percent to 39 percent.

Polls show that many of those voters were not just enamored by a new face, but voted specifically to express their opposition to Mr. Trump. Four in ten voters who supported Ms. Haley said their dislike of Mr. Trump was a more important factor in their vote than their approval of Ms. Haley, exit polls show. More than 90 percent said they would be dissatisfied if Mr. Trump won the nomination for a third time.

Mr. Trump had some of the same problems with independent-minded voters in the Iowa caucuses, a battle that typically draws more conservative, Republican voters. Exit polls there show that 55 percent of people who identified as independents supported one of Trump's opponents.

Trump will undoubtedly win over many of these voters in November. But the number of Haley supporters telling pollsters they will support Biden — about 40 percent according to state and national polls — is striking. Even if some of those voters were never Trump voters to begin with, the figure suggests that a large number of Republicans, or former Republicans, may not come home.

Mr. Newhouse cautioned against reading too much into New Hampshire's results, pointing out that the state and its independents lean left. New Hampshire has voted for Democrats in every presidential reelection since 2004. Still, he warned that his party must ensure the election does not become a referendum on Mr. Trump.

“If voters are just going up and down about Trump, they're going to give the thumbs down,” he said.

That's how Ruth Axtell, an interior designer and New Hampshire independent who voted for Ms. Haley, sees the race. She supported Trump in 2016, but voted for Biden in 2020.

“I would like to take Trump out and have a woman beat him too,” Ms. Axtell said. But she's not sure how she'll vote in the general election: “This is what we're stuck with?” she said.

The New Hampshire results revealed other Trump weaknesses. He lost to Ms. Haley among voters with college degrees and the party's highest earners, underscoring the problems he had retaining voters who once formed his party's base.

Trump's biggest defeats in New Hampshire appeared to come in Hanover, Lyme and Lebanon — affluent, highly educated towns around Dartmouth College and the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.

Even in Iowa, where caucusgoers were more connected to the MAGA movement, Trump was weakest in higher-income suburbs. In Dallas County, the swing suburb around Des Moines, which Trump narrowly won in 2020, he received only 39 percent support from Republican caucusgoers.

Mr. Trump has shrugged off concerns about winning back Republicans who rejected him. “I'm not sure we need too many,” he told reporters in New Hampshire on Tuesday. “They all come back.”

In his victory speech on Tuesday, an opportunity to target a general election audience, Trump used the attention to attack Ms. Haley, rather than calling for party unity as he did after the Iowa caucuses. He later insulted her dress on his Truth Social platform. “I don't get too angry, I get revenge,” he said.

Trump aides and super PAC officials both view Mr. Biden's campaign as a more formidable opponent than any of Mr. Trump's main rivals.

While Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley were largely unwilling or unable to return to Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden's campaign will not give up any ground.

The Biden campaign, for example, has responded quickly to Mr. Trump's claims that Mr. Biden is too old to serve another term, producing its own clips of Mr. Trump's verbal slip-ups and other moments of confusion.

In recent days, the super PAC MAGA Inc., which has spent $36 million on an advertising blitz in support of Trump's primary bid, has issued an urgent appeal to donors, pointing to internal projections that the Biden campaign will raise $100 million by 2019 will have spent on television. the end of the first quarter and as much as $300 million through the Republican National Convention in July.

In an email this week to a donor, the super PAC's executive director, Taylor Budowich, said Mr. Biden's flood of spending was an effort to refocus voters on issues that resonated with independents and that Democrats advantages, such as the right to abortion.

Mr. Trump would be positioned to beat Mr. Biden, Mr. Budowich said in the fundraising call, as long as the Trump team could keep voters focused on issues like the economy, national security and crime.

However, focusing on issues is not Trump's strong suit. In his victory speech Tuesday, he repeated lies about his 2020 defeat and added a new one, claiming he won New Hampshire that year. (Mr. Biden did.) The comment raised a new warning flag for Mr. Trump once he leaves the safety of the MAGA universe.

His fixation on the last election, his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the 91 charges he faces, most of them related to his efforts to retain power, threaten his prospects, and not just with already wary independents and swing voters.

Even in conservative Iowa, about 10 percent of his own supporters said they would not consider voting for him in November if he were convicted of a crime.