Nikki Haley Speaks After 2024 New Hampshire Primary Transcript

"Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I love you too.

What a great night. God is so good, all the time.

Thank you New Hampshire for the love, the kindness, your support, and a great night here tonight. Thank you so much. I want to first say thank you to my husband, who I know is watching right now. I love you. We’re excited to have you…

I want to thank my kids who are here, Rena and Nalin and Josh, who have really kind of stepped up and just given me the support I need. You really pull on your family when something like this happens, and I am incredibly blessed by their support. I have my parents at home and I will always say that the way they raised me, to know that we lived in the best country in the world, but to also know that the best way you appreciate your blessings is to give back. Thank you, mom and dad. I love you so much.

To my siblings, to my in-laws, to everybody back at home, to Vicky for helping me take care of mom and dad. Thank you for that. I will tell you, it feels like it’s been a lifetime, but it has been almost a year that we’ve been campaigning in New Hampshire, touching every hand, answering every question, being the last person to leave, and we had the most amazing thing happen, is the second that we got the endorsement from Governor Chris Sununu.

I mean, a true governor that doesn’t stand behind a podium. He shows up at a diner. He shows up at the brewery. He loves the people of New Hampshire. He has been with me every single day at every single event. Chris, I couldn’t have done it without you. And I want to thank someone who was with me on day one. He’s a patriot, he’s a hardcore conservative, and he is my friend, General Don Bolduc and Sharon, thank you so, so much.

I want to congratulate Donald Trump on his victory tonight. He earned it, and I want to acknowledge that. Now, you’ve all heard the chatter among the political class. They’re falling all over themselves saying this race is over.

Well, I have news for all of them. New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last in the nation. This race is far from over. There are dozens of states left to go. And the next one is my sweet state of South Carolina. At one point in this campaign, there were 14 of us running and we were at 2% in the polls. Well, I’m a fighter and I’m scrappy, and now we’re the last one standing next to Donald Trump. And today we got close to half of the vote. We still have a ways to go, but we keep moving up.

For a lot of people, politics is way too personal. It’s not personal for me, I voted for Trump twice. I was proud to serve America in his cabinet. I agree with many of his policies. I decided to run because I’m worried about the future of our country and because it’s time to put the negativity and chaos behind us. We have an economy that’s crushing middle class Americans. We have a border that is totally open and dangerous, creating a disaster in our country.

We have schools that are failing too many of our children, and we have a world on fire with a war in Europe and the Middle East and a huge and growing threat from China. And then you look at Washington, D.C. We have a Congress that fights about everything and accomplishes nothing. And we have Joe Biden in the White House making one bad decision after another, when he’s making any decisions at all. Our country’s in a real mess.

And The question is, who’s going to fix it? With Donald Trump, Republicans have lost almost every competitive election. We lost the Senate. We lost the House. We lost the White House. We lost in 2018. We lost in 2020 and we lost in 2022. The worst kept secret in politics is how badly the Democrats want to run against Donald Trump.

They know Trump is the only Republican in the country who Joe Biden can defeat. You can’t fix the mess if you don’t win an election.

A Trump nomination is a Biden win and a Kamala Harris presidency.

I defeat Biden handily.

With Donald Trump, you have one bout of chaos after another. This court case,, that controversy, this tweet, that senior moment you can’t fix Joe Biden’s chaos with Republican chaos. The other day, Donald Trump accused me of not providing security at the Capitol on January 6th. No, I’ve long called for mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75.

Trump claims he’d do better than me in one of those tests. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t, but if he thinks that, then he should have no problem standing on a debate stage with me. Most Americans do not want a rematch between Biden and Trump. The first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the party that wins this election. And I think it should be the Republicans that win this election. So our fight is not over because we have a country to save. In the next two months, millions of voters in over 20 states will have their say. We should honor them and allow them to vote.

And guess what? In the next two months, Joe Biden isn’t going to get any younger or any better. We’ll have all the time we need to defeat Joe Biden. When we get to South Carolina, Donald Trump’s going to have a harder time falsely attacking me. The great people of South Carolina, know I cut their taxes. They know I signed the toughest illegal immigration bill in the country. They know we passed voter ID and tort reform and ethics reform, and they know we moved 35,000 people from welfare to work. Every time I’ve run for office in South Carolina, I’ve beaten the political establishment. They’re lined up against me again, that’s no surprise, but South Carolina voters don’t want a coronation, they want an election. And we’re going to give them one. Because we are just getting started. Thank you for the energy. Thank you. Thank you for the love New Hampshire. We’re going home to South Carolina.

I love you too. Thank you. Thank you. Now, I want to say it’s really important that I say some additional thank-yous. I thanked Governor Chris Sununu and General Don and Sharon Bolduc, but I also want to mention just a few other people who’ve been incredibly gracious to us. To the entire Sununu family, including Governor John Sununu and Senator John E. Sununu, thank you, thank you, thank you. Senator Judd Gregg, thank you for your advice. Thank you for your encouragement and thank you for your support. I’m truly grateful. Kim Rice, thank you for being with me since the very beginning. I love you. And to Janine Cooper, Mary Mayville, Melinda Tourangeau, and our amazing women for Nikki, thank you. Thank you to State Senator Bill Gannon for his support and advocacy to the amazing Keene Mayor George Hansel and his mom Terry. We really enjoyed our time in Keene. Tim Sheehy for his dedication and his work ethic. Our county and town, chairs who have fought for us, volunteered at events and have been with us every step of the way.

I said this to you before, I will say it again. I am going to spend every single day proving to you that you made the right decision. God bless you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much."

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