New Hampshire primary: Trump, Haley face off after DeSantis drops out

New Hampshire voters head to the polls Tuesday for the first primary election of the 2024 presidential cycle.

But if former President Donald Trump has his way, the kickoff race could effectively mark the end of the road to the Republican nomination.

Following his landslide victory in the Iowa caucuses, Trump and his supporters are looking for a Granite State blowout that will extinguish the campaign of his sole remaining challenger: former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley.

Haley became the last Trump rival standing on Sunday after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign and endorsed the former president.

DeSantis had been polling a distant third in New Hampshire and invested his last-ditch efforts into Haley’s home state of South Carolina before officially exiting the race.

Polls indicate New Hampshire offers Haley her best chance for a win, given the high proportion of undeclared voters and that she has secured several key endorsements in the state like Gov. Chris Sununu.

Regardless of the outcome Tuesday in New Hampshire, political experts say it’s hard to envision Haley catching up to Trump’s overall lead.

“When you say it out loud, you realize it starts to sound like something out of a West Wing fan fiction,” said Chris Galdieri, a political science professor at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire.

Here’s what to know, and what to watch out for:

Here are the figures to know ahead of the primary, as provided by the office of New Hampshire Secretary of State David M. Scanlan.

Number of voting locations: 309

Number of primary election workers: Over 6,000

Number of candidates on the GOP primary ballots: 24

Number of candidates on the Democratic primary ballots: 21 (and Biden isn’t one of them)

Number of registered Republicans: 267,768

Number of registered…