New Hampshire primary: Attacks fly as Donald Trump grows lead

Nikki Haley has gone on the offensive against Donald Trump, just days before the Republican New Hampshire primary.

She has previously avoided lashing out at the former president, but Mr Trump’s attacks have become more personal as his commanding lead in the polls has grown.

Mr Trump is leading with 50% of likely Republican voters in the state, with Nikki Haley trailing far behind.

With his campaign faltering, Mr DeSantis admitted he had no path to victory – setting up a two-horse race in New Hampshire. And he endorsed Mr Trump.

In last week’s Iowa caucus, Mr Trump dominated Ms Haley and Ron DeSantis.

But even with that decisive win and a clear lead in the upcoming New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, Mr Trump has gone on the attack against Ms Haley.

His criticisms appear to have convinced her to turn up the heat on the former president.

Mr Trump went after his former UN ambassador at a campaign rally over the weekend, but he seemed to confuse her for another political foe – former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – when speaking about the Capitol riot.

On CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday, Ms Haley seized on the slip up and struck back at the former president, saying that his “mental stability will probably continue to decline”.

“No matter what it is, chaos follows,” she added. “In some cases he [Mr Trump] causes it. In some cases he doesn’t… he’s like a magnet to it. What happens is that puts the rest of America in chaos, and people are tired.”

The former UN ambassador also blasted her onetime boss as soft on undemocratic leaders, alleging he did not hold Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and China’s Xi Jinping accountable.

“You can’t have someone who’s trying to buddy up with dictators that want to kill us,” Ms Haley said on CBS. “Instead, you have to let them know what we expect of them. That’s the difference.”

Characterising Mr Trump as a mayhem and temper-fueled candidate appears to be a new counter deployed by Ms Haley. It comes after he has ramped up personal insults on her in recent days.

On Friday, for example, Mr Trump took to social media to refer to Ms Haley as “Nimbra”, a misspelling of her birth name Nimarata, and to baselessly suggest she was ineligible to serve as president or vice president in the US.

The jab against the US-born Ms Haley – whose parents emigrated to the US from India in the 1960s – was reminiscent of the false birther attacks Mr Trump deployed against former President Barack Obama.

Ms Haley responded to the baseless claim by telling reporters in New Hampshire that Mr Trump is “clearly insecure if he goes and does these temper tantrums”.

Her decision to fight back against Mr Trump – something she has been loath to do on the campaign trail – may have come too late in this primary, however.

While Ms Haley appeared to have some momentum a few weeks ago, polls released before Mr DeSantis quit showed Mr Trump dominating ahead of the New Hampshire primary.

Mr Trump led with 55% support among likely Republican voters, compared to 36% for Ms Haley and just 6% for Mr DeSantis.

A separate poll, from CNN, had Mr Trump with 50% support, compared to 39% for Ms Haley and 6% for Mr DeSantis.

The former president’s lead has prompted Haley campaign officials and political allies to temper and downplay expectations for New Hampshire after previously expressing optimism.

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, who has campaigned for Ms Haley, told NBC News that she “doesn’t have to win” in his home state. He claimed that any momentum from this week’s race offers an “amazing opportunity to turn this around”.

Additionally, Haley campaign manager Betsy Ankney repeatedly declined to offer a prediction during an on-the-record briefing with Bloomberg News, telling reporters only that Ms Haley needs “incremental progress”.

“I know everyone wants us to put a number on it,” she said. “We have never done that. We never will.”

Mr Trump’s campaign has also received a boost from the endorsements of two former opponents for the Republican nomination, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott.

Ms Haley also received an endorsement from a former rival, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, who never earned much support and ended his bid for the Republican nomination last week.

“Anyone who believes Donald Trump will unite this country has been asleep over the last 8 years,” he said in a post on X. “Trump intentionally tries to divide America and will continue to do so.”

Still, Ms Ankney said that “beating Donald Trump is not easy” and appeared to push for a longer view of the campaign.

“He is a juggernaut,” she said of Trump. “But how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. We have to continue to show incremental growth and progress until we are the last man, or woman, standing against him.”