Nikki Haley Is Chasing Independents. They Have a Mind of Their Own.

Her chance to beat Donald J. Trump in New Hampshire depends on her ability to win over its famously freethinking voters. Her challenge is that they come in all stripes.

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Kathleen Grindle Mack, 64, of Plainfield, N.H., is an independent voter who said she had never voted for a Republican for president but planned to back Nikki Haley, calling her the “least objectionable” option.

Nikki Haley’s presidential aspirations may hang on a victory in the New Hampshire primary election on Tuesday, powered by her sway with people who do not belong to a political party. It’s not a bad bet in a state where about 40 percent of voters call themselves independents.

The problem with her plan: Those voters come in all shapes and stripes, and many of them aren’t open to her.

Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, has won over plenty of voters in the middle in New Hampshire. They include moderate, conservative-leaning independents chased from the Republican Party by former President Donald J. Trump. And about 4,000 Democrats have re-registered as Republicans or independents to vote in the G.O.P. primary, in some cases to thwart Mr. Trump’s steady march to the nomination.

But New Hampshire’s potentially crucial primary will also include many other types of voters who have chosen to keep their distance from both parties:

Independents on the left who are loyal to their next-door senator, Bernie Sanders.
Independents on the right who plan to vote in the Democratic primary against President Biden.
True swing voters who are up for grabs in every election.
And working-class Trump supporters who don’t want to belong to a Republican Party long associated with the rich — but who are very much in the former president’s camp.

“Our country was thriving when he was in last time, so I’m going to go with what I know,” said Stacy Kolofoles of Laconia, who is a longtime independent but nonetheless “can’t see myself ever voting for a Democrat.”

ImageMs. Haley led Donald J. Trump among New Hampshire’s unaffiliated voters in a recent poll, but he had a far bigger advantage among registered Republicans. Credit…Sophie Park for The New York Times

Two dozen interviews with New Hampshire independents revealed stark challenges as well as ample opportunities for Ms. Haley as she courts the state’s largest political constituency. A new poll from Saint Anselm College spelled it out: Mr. Trump led Ms. Haley by 65 percent to 25 percent among likely Republican voters in the state, while she edged him among unaffiliated voters by a considerably narrower margin, 52 percent to 37 percent.

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