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Former president Donald Trump won the New Hampshire primary last Tuesday against remaining opponent Nikki Haley, former United States ambassador to the United Nations.
The Associated Press called the race in favor of Trump after previously making predictions of his win. As of now, Trump scored a total of 54.4% of the vote, with Haley trailing behind with 43.3%.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis came in third with 0.7% of the vote despite dropping out of the race, and was followed behind former New Jersey governor Chris Christie with 0.4%.
Even though the Democratic Party made the decision to start its primaries in South Carolina, President Biden still sweeped the Democratic vote.
Biden supporters managed to put together a massive write in campaign which made up the majority of Biden’s votes. According to the Los Angeles Times, “State authorities said official results of the Democratic balloting may not be available until Wednesday because it will take more time to tally the write-in votes.”
After Biden’s victory at the primary, his campaign issued a statement discussing the very real possibility of a potential election rematch between the president and his predecessor.
“Tonight’s results confirm Donald Trump has all but locked up the GOP nomination, and the election-denying, anti-freedom MAGA movement has completed its takeover of the Republican Party,” read the statement.
Despite losing the New Hampshire primary, Haley continues to remain confident in her campaign and refuses to back down. According to campaign donor Ozzie Palomo, Haley plans to continue her campaign all the way through Super Tuesday.
When referring to the upcoming South Carolina primary, Haley’s home state, Palomo said that, “She’s made the decision to bring this fight down there, and my sense is that she sees a path to be competitive.”
Social studies teacher Leah DiVencenzo was “not surprised” by the New Hampshire primaries results and worries about the potential repercussions of an election “rematch”.
“I think a re-match is really going to lower voter turnout at the polls,” she said. “If you think about it, Americans kind of treat politics like sports. Biden and Trump are two ‘teams’ that have already ‘battled,’ so I feel like many Americans will be pretty apathetic about the election.”
Social studies teacher Alejandro Arroyo shares similar concerns about lower voter turnout, specifically in younger voters.
“I think both candidates have done a bad job at attracting younger voters,” he said. “Younger voters won the election for President Biden in 2020, and neither candidate has done much to appeal to younger voters in recent years.”
“I think we will unfortunately see younger voters either start to not participate in the 2024 election or realize that there are other candidates outside the two-party system,” he concluded.
DiVencenzo remains unsure about whether Trump’s numerous indictments will have any effect on his presidential campaign.
“Right now there are four indictments against Trump, so it’s going to be really interesting to see the timeline of those lawsuits and if any convictions happen before or after the presidential election,” she said.
“It’ll also be interesting to see if the indictments affect his relevancy as a candidate,” DiVencenzo added. “It’s really unprecedented for someone to be both a presidential candidate and involved in ongoing lawsuits.”
Both DiVencenzo and Arroyo agree on the immense significance of the upcoming election.
“I think this election is going to be very crucial in determining how younger voters feel about politics today,” said Arroyo.
