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With five days left until the New Hampshire primary, Donald J. Trump and his allies are stepping up their efforts to muscle Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis out of the Republican presidential race by casting Mr. Trump\u2019s nomination as inevitable.<\/p>\n
The strategy reflects an urgent desire to end the race quickly and avoid an extended and expensive battle for delegates heading into Super Tuesday on March 5.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump is facing 91 criminal charges in four jurisdictions, as well as two costly civil trials, where he has used voluntary appearances at New York courthouses this month as public relations and fund-raising vehicles. But February offers him few such opportunities, meaning he would need to rely on his political strength alone to generate momentum for Super Tuesday, when voters in 16 states and territories will cast ballots for the nomination.<\/p>\n
In New Hampshire, Mr. Trump began attacking Ms. Haley with paid advertising weeks ago, and intensified the onslaught more recently with sharper personal criticisms and campaign statements portraying her as a China-loving globalist. On Tuesday, he went after Ms. Haley, the daughter of immigrants from India, on his social media website, using her birth name \u2014 Nimarata, which he misspelled as \u201cNimrada\u201d \u2014 as a dog whistle, much like his exaggerated enunciation of former President Barack Obama\u2019s middle name, \u201cHussein.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
And he has grown more aggressive on the campaign trail. In Portsmouth, N.H., on Wednesday night, he said of Ms. Haley, \u201cI don\u2019t know that she\u2019s a Democrat, but she\u2019s very close. She\u2019s far too close for you.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
But his team is looking ahead to the South Carolina primary on Feb. 24 as a \u201cWaterloo\u201d for his primary rivals, according to one Trump adviser, likening the state to the battlefield where Napoleon met his final defeat. Their aim is to humiliate her in her home state.<\/p>\n
\u201cSouth Carolina is where Nikki Haley\u2019s dreams go to die,\u201d another senior Trump adviser, Chris LaCivita, said in a brief interview.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump has been privately courting Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, hoping to win his endorsement before the primary. Trump allies who have relationships with Mr. Scott, including Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have been assisting the effort.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Republicans across the country, including senators who were previously skeptical of Mr. Trump, are assisting his strategy by consolidating their support, rushing to declare the race over, rolling out endorsements and demanding that his rivals quit immediately to \u201cunify\u201d the party against President Biden.<\/p>\n
Their efforts are being aided by the conservative news media, which has turned sharply against Mr. DeSantis after giving his candidacy favorable coverage early on.<\/p>\n
The inevitability strategy also appears to be bearing fruit within the business community. On Wednesday morning, one of Wall Street\u2019s most powerful chief executives, Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase \u2014 who as recently as November urged donors to \u201chelp Nikki Haley\u201d \u2014 praised aspects of Mr. Trump\u2019s record and scolded Democrats for vilifying the former president\u2019s Make America Great Again movement.<\/p>\n
Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis both insist their campaigns are alive and well, with plans to compete deep into March. But the reality is that a comeback victory would represent one of the greatest upsets in modern American political history. That would be especially true if Mr. Trump wins New Hampshire, since no Republican who has won two of the first three traditional early states \u2014 Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina \u2014 has ever lost the party\u2019s nomination.<\/p>\n
Ms. Haley finished a disappointing third in Monday\u2019s Iowa caucuses but is facing what polls suggest is more favorable terrain in New Hampshire, where unaffiliated voters can cast ballots in the primary and where her allies argue even a close second could provide a rationale to stay in the race. Even there, however, she needs a large turnout of unaffiliated voters to overcome Mr. Trump\u2019s overwhelming backing from Republicans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cShe basically has to turn the Republican primary into the unaffiliated primary,\u201d Mr. LaCivita, the senior Trump adviser, said of the state.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Ms. Haley\u2019s path to a competitive race seems more visible than Mr. DeSantis\u2019s, but only barely: She must win the New Hampshire primary next Tuesday or come in a very close second, and ride a wave of media momentum for a month before tackling Mr. Trump head-on in the state she used to govern, South Carolina, where he has a huge lead and endorsements from powerful politicians there, including the governor.<\/p>\n
In New Hampshire, the Trump campaign is trying to engage what one adviser called a \u201cpincer\u201d \u2014 squeezing Ms. Haley from both ends of the ideological spectrum. An advertising campaign began lacing into her on immigration (hitting her from the right) before criticizing her for wanting to raise the retirement age for Social Security (hitting her from the left).<\/p>\n
Ms. Haley is trying to portray Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden as two of the same: Disliked elderly politicians who are exacerbating chaos and division in America. It\u2019s a message tailored for independent voters who have tired of Mr. Trump, but the message will most likely have far less purchase among Republican voters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
While Ms. Haley is courting independent voters in New Hampshire, it\u2019s harder to see how a Republican candidate can win a Republican nomination without much stronger support from Republicans.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Ms. Haley\u2019s campaign manager, Betsy Ankney, rejected the notion that Ms. Haley\u2019s strategy was to rely on independent and crossover Democratic voters to make up for softer support among Republicans.<\/p>\n