New Hampshire primary live updates: Trump leads in polls despite early Haley win

Although insignificant in itself, she will be hoping it sets the pattern for later.

Trump, of course, will be scowling disdainfully over his breakfast Big Mac as he anticipates burying her alive in a landslide and then warmly accepting her endorsement.

Democratic voters in New Hampshire hoping to support President Joe Biden in the state’s primary today may be surprised to find his name missing from their ballot papers.

Instead, they will see only those of his challengers – Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips and eccentric self-help guru Marianne Williamson – and will have to write in Biden’s name themselves if they wish to cast a vote for him.

Trump’s challenger was in indignant, even fiery form during an interview with Fox and Friends this morning, pushing back against the hosts’ contention that it is time for her to bow to the inevitable.

She has since taken the same message to the streets of Hampton.

Her team have since put out this equally combative statement summing up her position going into today’s vote and suggesting she intends to stick around until, at least, Super Tuesday on 5 March.

The odds are certainly stacked against Nikki Haley.

To have the slimmest of chances of beating Donald Trump here, she needs to overcome the polls, the former president’s momentum and his now almost decade-long iron grip on the Republican base.

But if she’s to achieve one of the most stunning upsets in GOP primary history, that journey has to begin in New Hampshire today.

Things looking very ominious indeed for Haley if all of this polling proves accurate.

In case you missed it earlier, Nikki Haley has made a positive start to today’s New Hampshire primary, albeit in the smallest way possible.

Kelly Rissman has this report.

While New Hampshire voters are unlikely to face the same kind of harsh weather conditions as the Iowa caucus-goers last week, Tuesday’s results could be delayed by a significant amount of hand-counting or by calls for a recount from a certain former president who has made a habit of questioning results he doesn’t like.

Gustaf Kilander has everything you need to know about the business end of today’s primary.

The Republican front-runner rallied in Laconia, New Hampshire, last night where he had to contend with hecklers chanting a QAnon slogan at him and demanding the release of the January 6 “hostages” (or rioters), both of which he fielded with apparent approval.

He also imitated a nuclear rocket (“Ding ding ding ding boom whoosh boom”) and had the audacity to call his enemies “fascists”, provoking fresh cries from his audience.

The customary ritual of preparing-the-ground-for-disputing-the-results-in-case-he-loses was also aired, right on cue.

But, perhaps most bizarrely of all, he declared: “We are an institute in a powerful death penalty.”

Kelly Rissman has more on that (worrying) last point.

The underdog attempted to shoot down the notion that the future of her campaign hinges on New Hampshire today, telling NewsNation that while the “political class” is ready to bow down to King Trump: “This is not a coronation. This is an election.”

Contrary to what the former president seemed to believe over the weekend, the former governor of South Carolina and ex-UN ambassador was never in charge of security on Capitol Hill.

She has rightly hit back, correcting him on the matter and several other facts, but will it be enough to persuade Republican voters that it’s time for a younger generation to pick up the torch?