Donald Trump wins New Hampshire primary but Nikki Haley vows to fight on

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Donald Trump extended his commanding lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination by winning the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, but failed to knock rival Nikki Haley out of the White House contest.

Trump had 55 per cent of the votes counted at 11pm Eastern Standard Time, while Haley held 43.5 per cent. With votes still to be counted, the exact margin of his victory will only be known later in the evening.

Trump’s New Hampshire win follows his landslide victory last week in Iowa, where the former president won more than 50 per cent of the vote. He is the first non-incumbent in the modern era to win both Republican presidential contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The victories in the two crucial early states give Trump potentially unstoppable momentum as the Republican nominating campaign moves to the South, setting him on course for a rematch in the 2024 general election with Democratic incumbent Joe Biden.

“We had one hell of a night tonight,” Trump told supporters at a post-election party in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Tuesday night, as he lashed out at Haley for staying in the race and said she would never win the Republican party’s nomination for the White House.

“Just a little note to Nikki: she’s not going to win,” Trump added.

Despite Trump’s back-to-back victories, Haley was defiant at her own election night party in Concord, New Hampshire, insisting the race was “not over” and touting the next major contest in South Carolina, where she served two terms as governor — though she still trails the former president by double digits in recent polls there.

“New Hampshire is first in the nation, it is not last in the nation,” Haley told supporters. “This race is far…