LONDONDERRY, N.H.—A very confident Nikki Haley hosted a packed town hall meeting in New Hampshire earlier today as she remains a consistent second in the still-crowded GOP ticket for the presidency.
Ms. Haley was joined by New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu at the Poor Boy’s Diner in North Londonderry for the morning event, making her only one of two Republican candidates that the popular governor has stomped for in the key battleground state.
Gov. Sununu, who for a short time considered a run himself for the 2024 nomination, recently introduced Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at a campaign event in Rye.
While he bolstered Gov. DeSantis and his accomplishments in Florida, Gov. Sununu made a far more in-depth tribute to Mrs. Haley, citing her credentials as a former UN Ambassador and governor as making her one of the most qualified candidates for the corner office.
He also called the former South Carolina governor’s performance in the first GOP debate “awesome” and credited her for “getting the whole country excited” about the race.
Gov. Sununu fired up the audience himself when he reckoned that former President Donald Trump, who is polling by a huge margin as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, will not win the nomination as many are expecting.
“We have one guy who just is not going to get there and that’s Trump,” he said, noting Mrs. Haley’s “more than solid second place here in New Hampshire.”
Further playing to the breakfast crowd at the homey restaurant—which seemed like a quintessential slice of middle America—Gov. Sununu also inferred a message to the half dozen candidates trailing behind Mrs. Haley, saying, “if you cannot cross the finish line by November of ‘24, get your ass off the ballot.”
GOP contenders entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, and Texas businessman Ryan Binkley are polling in low single digits in the race for the GOP nomination.
Gov. DeSantis, a seventh contender in the Republican contest, is showing as slightly ahead of Ms. Haley in some polls, but the majority of newly released polls is showing him as trailing Ms. Haley. Both have a lot of catching up to do to beat Mr. Trump, who has as much as a 48 percent lead over them, according to national polls.
A group of former Trump supporters, now professed Haley loyalists, sitting elbow to elbow at the New Hampshire diner to hear their candidate talk, told The Epoch Times they believe Mrs. Haley can make up the gap by taking to social media to appeal to young voters.
“She needs to get on TikTok,” said Erin Murphy a New Hampshire resident, adding, “like it or not, it plays a major influence on the young generation including young voters.”
The 45-year old Hampton resident said that she noticed that the average age of supporters at Ms. Haley’s events are in their fifties, but feels Mrs. Haley also would have an appeal to younger voters if she would just reach out to them on venues they use to get their news.
Both 72-year old Bob McLean, also of Hampton, and 81-year old Joanne Bouilot, of Loudon, agreed, saying that they believe Ms. Haley should put all kinds of social media to work to close what they called “the Trump gap.”
Mrs. Bouliot, who says she admires Ms. Haley for her “honesty and experience,” would like to see the former UN ambassador on the Meidas Touch, a popular podcast on YouTube.
“I think that would close up the gap between her and Trump tomorrow,” she said. Mr. McLean pointed to statistics that show a young voter base makes up the majority of Independent voters to underscore his point.
According to a Jan. 2023 report by Axios, 52 percent of America’s Independent voters are made up of millennials and GenZers. Millennials range in age between 27–42 while the age range of GenZers is 11–26.
According to a recent Gallup poll, about 49 percent of American voters remain as Independents.
Ironically, later on when Ms. Haley took questions from the audience, a Massachusetts college student told Ms. Haley that a lot of his peers were getting their information from TikTok and blamed it for a rise in antisemitism, violence, and anti-American sentiment on college campuses.
“Do you have a plan to regulate TikTok, a plan to ban TikTok, and how would you promote good information” on it? he asked.
Mrs. Haley said that she believes TikTok should be banned because it has become a national security threat.
“Don’t underestimate the tie between social media and these protests that are happening on college campuses every year,” she said. “There are Russians, Chinese, Iranians, and North Koreans on social media right now trying to divide America. They know it works. It is a weapon that they use on us every day. ”
In addressing potential First Amendment infringements by such a ban, Ms. Haley said “it’s not freedom of speech when you are promoting violence.”
In earning some of her biggest applause of the morning, Mrs. Haley pivoted off the subject with a call for any college who fails to protect its students “including Jewish students” to lose its tax exemption status.
Mrs. Haley also scored big with several of her key proposals including swapping out President Joe Biden’s catch-and-release immigration policy with a “catch and deport” program, the defunding of sanctuary cities, and using special forces to eliminate foreign drug cartels entering the United States through its borders.
She rounded out her morning speech by citing a national survey that shows “75 percent of America is saying they don’t want a rematch between Mr. Trump and President Biden.”
“The only way we win the majority of Americans is if we have a new generational leader,” she said.
Ms. Haley had a second town hall-style appearance scheduled later in the day at the Polish American Citizen Club in Nashua.
She asked Gov. Sununu earlier in the day if he was ready to endorse her. He replied that he is “getting closer every day.” Last week in an op-ed piece, Judd Gregg, a former New Hampshire governor and Republican senator, officially endorsed Mrs. Haley.
Mr. Gregg described Ms. Haley as a “leader in the tradition of Ronald Reagan” and “a true fiscal conservative.”
