PHOTO: TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP
Get ready for round two: Donald Trump is set to face off with President Joe Biden for the White House once again after winning the New Hampshire primary, promising 10 months of extraordinary tension and bitterness.
The only remaining challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, Nikki Haley, vowed to fight on -- but her defeat on Tuesday left her with no realistic chance of chasing down the 77-year-old former president.
Trump previewed the divisive rhetoric to come in the campaign for November's cliffhanger election with an angry victory speech that attacked Haley for having a "very bad night" and even lashed out at her dress.
Even Biden, 81, accepted it was "now clear" that he faced a rematch with Trump -- one that polling suggests many Americans don't want -- and warned that the future of American democracy itself rode on the result of the election in November.
Haley had hoped for a major upset in the northeastern state, but Trump -- her former boss when she was UN ambassador during his chaotic administration -- won by around 54 percent to 43 percent, with some 91 percent of votes counted.
Having crushed his rivals in the first vote of the campaign in Iowa, Trump said that when the primary contest reaches Haley's home state of South Carolina in February "we're going to win easily."
The twice-indicted former president kept to his hard-right messaging, with no hint of reaching out to the more moderate voters who supported Haley, some of whom were concerned by the 91 criminal indictments facing Trump.
At one point swearing on prime-time TV, Trump said the United States was a "failing country" and loaded his speech with ominous warnings about immigration and false claims about winning the 2020 election.
