When New Hampshire voters head to the polls Tuesday, they will not only be picking a nominee.
Their choice between former President Donald Trump and his former U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, will also send a big signal about their feelings on the future of the party.
Luke Rose, a 26-year-old casino dealer, was bowling with co-workers at Yankee Lanes, a downtown Manchester bowling alley. Between turns, he described the way he views the conflict as being between what he calls the “MAGA idealism” of Trump and traditional conservative values of Haley.
He’s convinced Trump’s way will win out.
“The message that will be sent [on Tuesday] is that Trump has officially been chosen. He’s the one,” Rose predicted. “And beyond that, we have to prepare ourselves, whether we like it or not, for a MAGA America or a Biden America.”
The tightening race has thrown a spotlight on the identity crisis within the Republican party and the debate between populism and small-government conservatism.
Ever since Donald Trump rode down the escalator in Trump Tower, the Republican party has been struggling to figure out what it stood for.
The more establishment, anti-Trump, forces within the party have long been clamoring for this choice, said Alex Conant, who helped lead Senator Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign in 2016.
The choice is between Trump who is the embodiment of the new wave of conservative populism and Haley who more represents the limited government wing of the party that also supports strong foreign policy.
Conant acknowledges the party has already moved so far away from its traditional values since Trump’s rise.
“The New Hampshire primary is the last hurdle for Donald Trump to demonstrate that the Republican Party is a populist party now,” Conant said. “And that the limited government, traditional conservatives that Nikki Haley represents do not have any real power within the party.”
The Trump campaign says there was never any doubt whose party it is.
Jason Miller, a senior advisor on the campaign says Trump has not only unified the base behind him, but he’s also brought in new coalition of voters and expanded the party.
“What President Trump has done to show that the populism and working class Americans now side with the Republican Party,” Miller said.
Phil Palker says he’s one of those Americans. The 59-year-transportation worker, and former Coast Guard navigator, says Trump changed the party and he evolved with the former president.
Trump connects with voters like him in a way that no other politicians have before, Palker said.
“You know, I was pretty stagnant Republican,” he said. “But ever since Donald Trump started running in 2015, I think his message is revealing to who the party is.”
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