Morning Distribution for Wednesday, January 24, 2024

[FiveThirtyEight]( Morning Distribution Wednesday, January, 24, 2024 Your daily briefing from FiveThirtyEight --------------------------------------------------------------- The Morning Story [If Haley couldn't win New Hampshire, she probably won't win anywhere]( [If Haley couldn't win New Hampshire, she probably won't win anywhere]( By [Nathaniel Rakich](/author/nathaniel_rakich) New Hampshire was supposed to be former U.N. Ambassador [Nikki Haley]( big breakout. She [spent more of her time in the state]( and [spent more money on ads there]( than any other Republican presidential candidate — and yet [she still lost to former President]( Trump](. As of Tuesday night at 11 p.m. Eastern, Trump had 54 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, and Haley had 45 percent. Trump’s win likely closes the door on any possibility that he could lose the GOP nomination. While [most delegates have yet to be awarded]( and Haley is still technically contesting the race, it’s not clear where she’ll be able to win any primaries or caucuses; New Hampshire was likely her best shot. As a result, it’s now pretty likely that Trump will sweep all 56 states and territories in the 2024 Republican primary. Haley didn’t perform well in the Granite State just because she campaigned hard there; she campaigned hard there because her team correctly realized that [New Hampshire’s demographics make it a uniquely bad fit for Trump](. Indeed, if you tried to engineer a state in a lab to be bad for Trump in a Republican primary, it would look a lot like New Hampshire. To wit: - According to a [December poll from The New York Times/Siena College]( Trump was supported by 76 percent of Republican voters nationwide without a bachelor’s degree, but only 39 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree. New Hampshire is one of the [top eight most college-educated states]( in the union, with 41 percent of people age 25 and older holding a bachelor’s degree. - As [we wrote a couple weeks ago]( evangelicals are one of Trump’s core voting blocs; when we averaged the evangelical crosstabs of national Republican primary polls, something like 70 percent of them supported Trump. But only 8 percent of New Hampshire residents are white evangelical Protestants, according to the [Public Religion Research Institute](. And in 2016 exit polls, New Hampshire ranked 27th out of 28 states in terms of how evangelical their Republican primary electorates were. - Trump also does better among self-identified Republicans than among self-identified independents who nonetheless participate in Republican primaries — a trend that [Geoffrey Skelley identified months ago](. According to [preliminary exit polling]( Trump won self-identified Republicans in New Hampshire 74 percent to 25 percent, but Haley won self-identified independents 60 percent to 38 percent. Haley did well in New Hampshire because 43 percent of the Republican primary electorate identified as independent, but this almost certainly won’t be the case in future contests. New Hampshire allows non-Republicans to vote in Republican primaries, which many states do not, and it also has [more voters unaffiliated with a political party]( than most states. It’s no surprise, then, that in 2016, all but one exit-polled state (Massachusetts) had more self-identified Republicans in their Republican primary electorates than New Hampshire. To power our [tricked-out delegate tracker]( G. Elliott Morris actually built a model that uses political and demographic factors like these to calculate each candidate’s level of support in each state and territory. And lo and behold, as of Monday, that model thought New Hampshire was Haley’s best, and Trump’s second-worst, state in the entire country. New Hampshire is Haley’s strongest state Estimated support for former President Donald Trump and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in the Republican primary contest in New Hampshire and subsequent voting states and territories, according to 538 modeling based on polls and demographics State/territory▲▼ Trump %▲▼ Haley %▲▼ New Hampshire 53.0% 31.2% Idaho 53.0 22.8 Wyoming 53.1 22.8 South Carolina 62.5 21.8 Maine 56.4 20.6 North Dakota 60.9 19.9 Vermont 59.6 19.9 Massachusetts 61.6 18.2 Utah 53.9 18.0 Minnesota 53.9 17.9 Kansas 54.2 17.9 Oklahoma 54.6 17.6 Wisconsin 59.7 17.2 Mississippi 65.6 17.1 Michigan 63.3 17.0 Louisiana 65.8 16.9 District of Columbia 64.8 16.6 U.S. Virgin Islands 66.1 16.2 Delaware 63.2 16.2 Rhode Island 62.4 16.0 Oregon 62.4 16.0 Washington 62.4 16.0 Nebraska 62.4 16.0 Alaska 63.0 15.6 Hawaii 66.0 15.0 Alabama 68.7 14.9 Guam 66.6 14.6 Ohio 67.3 14.5 Georgia 66.1 14.4 Northern Mariana Islands 67.0 14.3 American Samoa 67.1 14.3 Pennsylvania 64.5 14.3 Arkansas 63.1 14.0 North Carolina 68.3 13.9 Kentucky 63.2 13.9 Connecticut 64.3 13.7 Illinois 65.6 13.7 West Virginia 63.3 13.5 Montana 63.4 13.5 New York 64.1 13.4 Virginia 66.6 13.2 South Dakota 59.6 13.1 Colorado 65.6 13.0 Indiana 66.1 12.8 Missouri 67.3 12.8 California 69.2 12.5 Arizona 67.6 12.0 Nevada 66.5 12.0 Maryland 65.8 11.5 New Mexico 68.1 11.2 Puerto Rico 69.4 11.1 New Jersey 67.8 10.8 Texas 70.7 10.7 Florida 65.7 10.4 Tennessee 75.1 8.1 Sources: Polls, U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, Public Religion Research Institute, Pew Research Center True, that model undershot Haley’s performance in New Hampshire by about 10 percentage points, but even if you give her a 10-point boost everywhere else, it doesn’t put her ahead of Trump. Simply put, if Haley couldn’t win in New Hampshire, she will have trouble winning anywhere — including her home state of South Carolina, where she has staked her campaign despite trailing Trump by [over 30 points in the polls](. And obviously, you can’t win a presidential nomination without winning a single state. Of course, we can never rule out a dramatic twist in the race, caused by something like a [health scare or Trump’s legal issues](. But at this point, it would take something that dramatic to cost Trump the nomination — because if nothing changes, the results so far indicate that he will win every primary contest and virtually every delegate that is up for grabs. [Read more]( [FiveThirtyEight] [View in browser]( [ABC News]( [Unsubscribe](