Nikki Haley lashes out at Donald Trump’s ‘lies’ in last-gasp bid to win primary

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Nikki Haley lashed out on Monday at what she said were Donald Trump’s “lies”, as she urged voters in New Hampshire to defy the “political class” backing the former president ahead of Tuesday’s pivotal primary vote.

The former South Carolina governor responded to days of attacks by Trump, telling voters to check “every single thing” that he had said about her.

“I have seen all of the commercials that you have seen, and I have seen the mail that you have been reading, and every single thing that Donald Trump has said, or put on TV, has been a lie,” Haley said at a veterans’ hall in Franklin, New Hampshire on Monday morning. “Check with the fact checkers, every single thing.”

At a larger rally at the end of the day in Salem, New Hampshire, Haley doubled down on the message, saying: “If you have got to lie, you don’t deserve to win.”

Haley’s broadside came in a final day of frantic campaigning just a day ahead of the primary, as the former US ambassador raced to close a wide polling gap.

The battle between the two has turned nasty, after Trump described her as a “birdbrain” and referred to Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, as “Nimra” — a misspelling of her birth name Nimarata.

Trump has also claimed falsely that Haley could be ineligible for the presidency, reviving the “birther” conspiracy theories he propagated about Barack Obama.

Haley and her allies are betting that she can defeat Trump by winning over moderate Republicans, as well as the independent voters who make up a large share of the New Hampshire electorate and can choose to participate in the Republican primary.

“We are a stone’s throw away from doing what nobody thought was possible,” Chris Sununu, New Hampshire’s popular Republican governor who has campaigned for Haley, said as he introduced her in Salem on Monday night.

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