Is 43% better or worse than expectations?

A close primary election that defies easy interpretation

In February of 1992, President George H.W. Bush defeated Pat Buchanan in the New Hampshire Primary by a margin of 53 to 38. This was widely described as a massive repudiation of the incumbent president, who won the contest by 15 points. “Bush Jarred in First Primary,” announced the New York Times, and commentator R.W. Apple wrote about an “Ill Wind for the President.” Bush went on to win the nomination handily, although became one of just three 20th century incumbent presidents to lose his reelection bid.

This week, Donald Trump defeated Nikki Haley in the New Hampshire Primary by a margin of 54 to 43 — a closer shave than Bush received in 1992. She more than doubled her vote share in the Iowa caucuses, while substantially outpacing her polling numbers, which had been on the rise in New Hampshire for weeks. “Momentum” is a notoriously vague concept, but by any rough definition used by political journalists, she would seem to have it.

Yet the descriptions of this contest have been less clear on this. While some coverage has noted a strong showing by a challenger, other accounts have basically said that Trump has the nomination locked down after victories in New Hampshire and Iowa. Which is it?

In many ways, what’s more important than one’s actual vote share in Iowa and New Hampshire is how that vote share differs from expectations. Bill Clinton came in second place in the 1992 Democratic New Hampshire Primary with 25% of the vote. But because he’d been plagued with scandals in the months leading up to the contest, and because his main opponent was Paul Tsongas from neighboring Massachusetts, Clinton was expected to do worse. The better-than-expected showing was what made him “the Comeback Kid” and helped propel him to further victories.

Expectations for the current Republican nomination contest are confounded by the fact that Donald Trump both is and isn’t running as an incumbent. He’s obviously a dominant figure within the party, and was the party’s presidential nominee for the past two cycles. Also, as the first former president to run for the presidency since Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 — and the first to do so in the post-1968 system of primaries and caucuses — he doesn’t fit neatly into our modern categories. And I must give credit to our Iowa State University partners, who asked, back in November, “If Donald Trump is both the leader of the party and the de facto incumbent, why is he barely receiving half of the party’s support?”

In a two-candidate race between two competitive primary candidates, one winning by 11 points is just, simply, the winner. In the case where one of those candidates is functionally the incumbent, the other candidate pulling 43 percent of the vote would, and should, be seen as a significant threat to the incumbent and a flashing warning light of a major rift within the party.

Expectations have been all over the map for this one. In interviews, Haley notably declined to say what specific number she was shooting for, simply saying that she expected to do better than she did in Iowa. Some pundits were saying that anything less than a win would be a disappointment for her.

One person apparently not dismissing Haley’s New Hampshire vote share is Donald Trump. Even while many pundits were saying that he has the nomination locked down at this point and is free to pivot to the general election, he has ramped up his attacks on her and threatened to blackball any Republican who donates to her campaign.

Trump seems more bullish on Haley’s candidacy than I am. While I see her New Hampshire tally as an impressive feat, it’s also likely her high-water mark. She has successfully unified the anti-Trump portion of the party behind her (with no help from Chris Christie, by the way), and it’s just not a majority.

That doesn’t mean she should fold up her tent and go home, though. The logic for staying in the race is the same as it was for entering it — Trump is in several precarious situations and she’s in a good position to benefit from them. Within the next few weeks, for example, the Supreme Court might determine that states can strike Trump from their primary ballots; it would be good for her to still be in the field if that happens!

Additionally, while it would be difficult to recreate her strong New Hampshire results in many other states, there are some states where that could be possible. Colorado, for example, like New Hampshire, has a highly educated population and a large number of unaffiliated voters who can vote in the Republican primary. It could make sense to stay in at least until Super Tuesday, assuming she has the funding for it, to see if lightning strikes again.

But at least part of her campaign has to include not just convincing people to vote for her, but convincing political observers that she’s outperforming expectations, and not just tilting at windmills.