A lot has developed in the Republican primary since the Iowa caucuses back on January 15.
Since that time, several more candidates have dropped out and endorsed former President Donald Trump including Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis.
Today, the state of New Hampshire gets a crack at voting as the first-in-the-nation primary state. Here are some details on the primary voting today including poll closing times and live results stream.
When does primary voting start and end?
The hours of polling places vary in New Hampshire, but most polling locations open between 6 am and 8 am ET.
Most locations are closed by 8 pm ET but some close earlier at 7 pm ET.
Voters in the tiny community of Dixville Notch, which has just a few residents, will be the first to cast their ballots at midnight. The midnight voting tradition began in 1960.
When will the results be available?
It’s expected that by 9 pm ET results should be available and we may know who won.
Live Results: NBCNews.com, DecisionDeskHQ.com
What about the Democratic primary?
Joe Biden’s name isn’t on the ballot and the New Hampshire Democratic primary is not being sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee. A write-in campaign has been launched to support Biden but it’s possible another name could emerge as the winner of the Democratic primary.
What do the polls say?
We looked over several of the final polls on Monday and it appears Nikki Haley is in a tough spot.
Similar to DeSantis, who bet everything on Iowa, Haley is putting all her resources into New Hampshire. It’s a first and last stand for Trump’s former U.N. Ambassador and if she can’t win or finish within a few points of her former boss, her campaign will end later tonight.
There’s a chance she stays in to fight until her home state of South Carolina or even to Super Tuesday. However, if Trump wins New Hampshire by double-digits, as most polls forecast, the calls for Haley to exit will become deafening. More so than that, Haley’s fundraising will dry up overnight, a tell-tale sign for a campaign about to collapse.
Haley has pledged to stay in for the “long haul” but that all depends on the results tonight, per ABC News:
“We’re going home to South Carolina. The goal is we wanted to be strong … stronger in New Hampshire and then even stronger than that in South Carolina,” Haley told ABC News’ Rachel Scott, referring to her home state’s Feb. 24 primary. “We have saved our money. We’ve got it ready. We’ve got the big ad buy that we’re going to do for South Carolina and we’re going to crisscross the state that I love so much so we’re not we’re not backing out anytime soon.”
But Republican strategists in New Hampshire estimated to ABC News that while Haley is likely vacuuming up former Christie supporters, many DeSantis and Ramaswamy backers are now swarming to Trump, because his policies and approach are more similar to theirs, dampening anti-Trump Republicans’ hopes that there is a large enough vote to consolidate against him.
It’s been Trump benefiting as candidates fold and he picks up more support. Anyone voting for Haley who wasn’t previously voting for Chris Christie is already locked in. Furthermore, Haley has made many unforced errors in her desire to play conventional red-state governor wrapped in moderate globalist pragmatism. She’s an “everything to everyone” candidate and it shows.
We’ll soon find out if the head-to-head matchup Haley was begging for will work out in her favor, or Donald Trump’s.
