The latest on the New Hampshire primary and 2024 campaign

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley returned home to South Carolina as she shifted her focus to the state’s primary, telling a crowd her GOP rival Donald Trump “pitched a fit” in his New Hampshire victory speech.

She added that the former president should feel threatened.

 "We got out there, we did our thing and we said what we had to say, and then Donald Trump got out there and just threw a temper tantrum. He pitched a fit. He was insulting. He was doing what he does, but I know that's what he does when he's insecure. I know that's what he does when he is threatened, and he should feel threatened without a doubt,” she said. 

The former South Carolina governor fired back at Trump in the first two minutes of her remarks on Wednesday, again highlighting Trump’s gaffe in which he confused Haley for Nancy Pelosi.

Doubling down on calls for Trump to participate in GOP primary debates, Haley said if Trump insists he’d beat her in a cognitive test, he should be willing to confront her one-on-one.

“Bring it, Donald, show me what you got,” Haley said.

President Joe Biden officially turned the page Wednesday to the general election, looking ahead to a race against former President Donald Trump that will test his ability to reenergize key corners of his winning coalition in a race his team views as nothing less than a fight for democracy itself.

The campaign believes results from New Hampshire’s primary were enough to indicate Trump would be the Republican nominee. As the starting gun fired, the contours of Biden’s efforts and challenges in reconvening critical voting blocs that helped propel him into office were coming into sharper view.

Biden’s path to victory will not be an easy one. His campaign advisers readily acknowledge the race this year will be exceedingly close and say their efforts will accelerate over the coming weeks. He faces a party that, according to polls, would have preferred a different candidate. And divisions within his coalition, most visibly over the war in Gaza, have increasingly spilled into public view.

On Wednesday, he secured the key backing of the United Auto Workers, which had initially held off endorsing Biden amid concerns about his push toward electric vehicles.

And on Thursday, a pair of events will be aimed at bolstering Biden’s standing on economic issues, which have proven frustratingly difficult for the president to gain traction on over the past year. He will travel to battleground Wisconsin to tout infrastructure investments while his Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will draw a rare contrast with Trump in a major address.

The series of engagements illustrate the opportunities and challenges Biden faces as he enters a contest against an opponent he has openly labeled a threat to democracy, yet whom some polls show with a small nationwide lead.

The first two Republican primary contests of the year have now taken place —the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

In the current GOP delegate fight, Nikki Haley has a lot of work to do. After winning in Iowa and New Hampshire, former President Donald Trump has 32 delegates to Haley's 17. Winning the GOP nomination requires at least 1,215 out of 2,429 delegates awarded as part of the primary process.

Here's a look at the key upcoming primary dates:

February:

• February 3: South Carolina Democratic presidential primary election
• February 6: Nevada Democratic presidential primary election
• February 8: Nevada Republican presidential caucuses and Virgin Island Republican presidential caucuses
• February 24: South Carolina Republican presidential primary election
• February 27: Michigan Democratic presidential primary election

March:

• March 2: Idaho Republican caucuses and Missouri Republican caucuses
• March 3: Washington, DC, Republican presidential primary
• March 4: North Dakota Republican presidential caucuses
• March 5: Super Tuesday — states and territories holding elections include Alabama, Alaska Republican presidential primary, American Samoa Democratic presidential caucuses, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Iowa Democratic presidential preference, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah Democratic presidential primary and Republican presidential caucuses, Vermont and Virginia.

Access the full 2024 election calendar.

Former President Donald Trump is expected to be in court on Thursday as E. Jean Carroll’s civil defamation trial against him resumes, according to a court official. 

Trump's attorneys said in court Monday he wants to testify, but it's unclear if he will.

The schedule still could change. The judge in the case updated the docket on Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET to state that court would resume Thursday morning.

On Monday, the judge adjourned the trial due to a sick juror. The jury has not heard proceedings since last Thursday.

As Republicans begin to fall in line behind former President Donald Trump as their party’s likely nominee, there are deep-seated reservations about his polarizing candidacy — particularly within the Senate GOP.

Many still have fresh memories of the 2021 Capitol attack and had hoped he wouldn’t return to the national scene. Others blame him for their 2022 failure to take back the majority in the midterms and had stayed quiet as the 2024 presidential primary unfolded. 

Yet now Trump is on a glide path to the nomination and remains the most dominant force in GOP politics – something they’re trying to reconcile as they fear that his penchant for controversy and four criminal indictments will sink their chances at keeping the House and taking back the Senate.  

“For him to win the general election, he's got to start running a general election campaign, which will mean his message is going to have to appeal to those independent voters and moderate Republicans,” said Senate GOP Whip John Thune, the No. 2 Republican who has yet to endorse Trump but said he would back the eventual nominee.

Further, exit polls in New Hampshire underscore other concerns about Trump's chances in a general election. While Trump dominated with GOP voters in New Hampshire, winning about three-quarters of Republican voters, he struggled with independents and more moderate Granite Staters.

Republicans now fear that Trump would put off those types of independent voters who will be essential to winning battleground House and Senate seats — and that could cost them control of Congress.  “Yes,” one swing-district House Republican said when asked if he believes Trump will cost their party the House. 

Read more about what the Senate GOP is saying about Trump.

Black Voters Matter is set to gather in Charleston, South Carolina, on Thursday to kick off a new campaign and bus tour ahead of the nation's first Democratic presidential primary in the state.

The voting rights organization said the campaign, "We Fight Back," is intended to rally Black voters and bring awareness to issues affecting Black communities. Black Voters Matter said it will strategize on how to fight misinformation targeting Black communities and map out how grassroots organizers can arm voters with facts. 

“We believe that Black voters are a key constituency in fixing democracy in this country and we are sending a clear message that Black voters in rural and urban areas will not be denied the vote,” said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter. 

The organization says it will convene in South Carolina because the state will host the first Democratic presidential primary of 2024 on February 3. Early voting is already underway.

Some background: In late 2022, President Joe Biden sent a letter to the Democratic National Convention, urging it to reorder the primary calendar to allow voters of color to cast their votes sooner in the primary process. 

“Black voters in particular have been the backbone of the Democratic Party but have been pushed to the back of the early primary process,” wrote Biden. “It is time to stop taking these voters for granted, and time to give them a louder and earlier vote in the process.” 

Two very different versions of American Republicans showed up at the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

Trump has now won more than half the vote in Iowa, a state where the majority of Republican caucusgoers (61%) think most or all abortions should be banned nationwide, and also in New Hampshire, where more than two-thirds of Republican primary voters (67%) oppose such a ban.

In New Hampshire, only a little more than a third of Republican primary voters said they were part of the MAGA movement, referring to the “Make America Great Again” slogan that Trump popularized in 2016. In Iowa, it was nearly half of caucusgoers.

Also in Iowa, a third of Republicans don’t think he’d be fit for office if he’s convicted of a crime. In New Hampshire, 42% of primary voters feel that way.

Read more about these different voters. Turnout was down in Iowa but set a new record in New Hampshire.

While the primary contests in Iowa and New Hampshire can be critical for giving candidates early momentum — those two states represent a small number of delegates.

It’s not until Super Tuesday on March 5, seven weeks after the first Americans pick a candidate in Iowa, that a consequentially large number of Republican delegates is at stake.

Winning the GOP nomination requires at least 1,215 out of 2,429 delegates awarded as part of the primary process. Shortly after CNN projected that Trump would win New Hampshire, Trump had 32 delegates compared with Haley’s 17.

In 13 primaries and three caucuses, 874 delegates, 36% of the Republican total, will be up for grabs, including in California, the state with the most Republican delegates. But we still aren’t even halfway through the primaries.

Below, explore how many delegates are at stake in every contest.

For the second time in as many days, President Joe Biden was interrupted by protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza during a campaign event.

Biden, who was speaking to the United Autoworkers Community Action Program Conference in Washington, DC, was accepting the union’s endorsement for president when a protester in the audience unfurled a Palestinian flag, shouting, “Call for a humanitarian ceasefire!”

The protesters, who were escorted out of the room, were quickly drowned out by chants of “UAW!” from the crowd. 

Biden’s remarks on abortion Tuesday were also interrupted by protesters calling for a ceasefire — though the demonstrators staggered their disruptions throughout the president’s remarks, forcing Biden to pause at near-minute intervals throughout.

Interestingly enough, the United Autoworkers Union itself called for a ceasefire in Gaza last month.

“From opposing fascism in WWII to mobilizing against apartheid South Africa and the CONTRA war, the UAW has consistently stood for justice across the globe,” UAW Region 9A Director Brandon Mancilla said in a statement in December. “That is why I am proud that the UAW International is today officially calling for a ceasefire in Israel and Palestine.”