New Hampshire Primary Night Remarks - January 23, 2024

What a great night, God is so good all the time.

Thank you New Hampshire for the love, the kindness, the support, and a great night here tonight, thank you so much. I want to first say thank you to my husband who I know is watching right now, I love you, we're excited to have you. I want to thank my kids who are here, Rena and Nalin and Josh who have really kind of stepped up and just given me the support I need. You really need to pull on your family when something like this happens and I am incredibly blessed by their support. I have my parents at home and I will always say that the way they raised me to know that we lived in the best country in the world, but to also know that the best way you appreciate your blessings is to give back. Thank you mom and dad. I love you so much.

To my siblings, to my in laws, to everybody back at home, to Vicki for helping me take care of mom and dad. Thank you for that. You know, I will tell you it has been- it feels like it's been a lifetime but it has been almost a year that we've been campaigning in New Hampshire; touching every hand, answering every question, being the last person to leave.

And we had the most amazing thing happen is the second that we got the endorsement from Governor Chris Sununu.I mean, a true governor that doesn't stand behind the podium. He shows up at a diner, he shows up at the brewery, he loves the people of New Hampshire. He was been with me every single day, at every single event. Chris, I couldn't have done it without you.

And I want to thank someone who was with me on day one. He's a patriot. He's a hardcore conservative, and he is my friend, General John Bolton, thank you.

I want to congratulate Donald Trump on his victory tonight. He earned it and I want to acknowledge that. Now you've all heard the chatter among the political class. They're falling all over themselves, saying this race is over.

Well I have news for all of them. New Hampshire is first in the nation it is not the last in the nation. This race is far from over. There are dozens of states left to go. And the next one is my sweet state of South Carolina.

At one point in this campaign, there were 14 of us running and we were at 2% in the polls. Well, I'm a fighter, and I'm scrappy, and now we're the last one standing next to Donald Trump.

And today we got close to have of the vote. We still have a ways to go but we keep moving up.

For a lot of people, politics is way too personal. It's not personal for me. I voted for Trump twice. I was proud to serve America in his cabinet. I agree with many of his policies. I decided to run because I'm worried about the future of our country and because it's time to put the negativity and chaos behind us.

We have an economy that's crushing middle class Americans. We have a border that is totally open and dangerous creating a disaster in our country. We have schools that are failing too many of our children, and we have a world on fire with a war in Europe and the Middle East, and a huge and growing threat from China. And then you look at Washington DC.

We have a congress that fights about everything and accomplishes nothing. And we have Joe Biden in the White House making one bad decision after another, when he's making any decisions at all. Our country's in a real mess.

And the question is: who's going to fix it?

With Donald Trump, Republicans have lost almost every competitive election. We lost the Senate. We lost the house. We lost The White House. We lost in 2018, we lost in 2020, and we lost in 2022. The worst kept secret in politics is how badly the Democrats want to run against Donald Trump. They know Donald Trump is the only republican in the country who Joe Biden can defeat. You can't fix the mess if you don't win an election. A Trump nomination is a Biden win and a Kamala Harris presidency. I can beat Biden, handily.

With Donald Trump, you have one bout of chaos after another. This court case, that controversy, this tweet, that senior moment. You can't fix Joe Biden's chaos with Republican chaos. The other day Donald Trump accused me of not providing security at the Capitol on January 6th.

Now, I've long called for mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75. Trump claims he'd do better than me in one of those tests. Maybe he would, maybe he would, but if he thinks that, then he should have no problem standing on a debate stage with me.

Most Americans do not want a rematch between Biden and Trump. The first party to retire its 80 year old candidate is going to be the party that wins this election. And I think it should be the Republicans that win this election. So our fight is not over. Because we have a country to save. In the next two months, millions of voters in over 20 states will have their say. We should honor them and allow them to vote. And guess what? In the next two months. Joe Biden isn't gonna get any younger or any better. We'll have all the time we need to defeat Joe Biden.

When we get to South Carolina Donald Trump's gonna have a harder time falsely attacking me. The great people of South Carolina know I cut their taxes. They know I signed the toughest illegal immigration bill in the country. They know we pass voter ID and tort reform and ethics reform and they know we moved 35,000 people from welfare to work.

Every time I've run for office in South Carolina, I've beaten the political establishment. They're lined up against me again. That's no surprise. But South Carolina voters don't want a coronation. They want an election. And we're going to give them one.

Because we are just getting started, thank you for the energy. Thank you for the love New Hampshire, we're going home to South Carolina.

Now I want to say, it's really, it's really important that I say some additional thank yous. I thank Governor Chris Sununu and General John and Sharon Bolton. But I also want to mention just a few other people who've been incredibly gracious to us. To the entire Sununu family including Governor John Sununu and Senator John E. Sununu.

Senator Judd Gregg, thank you for your advice. Thank you for your encouragement and thank you for your support. I'm truly grateful.

Kim Rice, thank you for being with me since the very beginning. I love you.

And to Janine Cooper, Mary Mayville, and Melinda Durango and our amazing women for Nikki, thank you.

Thank you to state Senator Bill Gannon and for his support and advocacy. To the amazing keen Mayor George Hansol and his mom Terry. We really enjoyed our time, indeed. Tim Shady for his dedication his work ethic. Our county and town chairs who have fought for us volunteered at events and have been with us every step of the way.

I said this to you before, I will say it again. I'm gonna spend every single day proving to you that you made the right decision. God bless you, thank you very much.