Former President Donald Trump is claiming election interference in New Hampshire‘s primary process with a series of digs at the independent appeal of former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley before next Tuesday’s election.

Trump is underscoring Haley’s appeal to New Hampshire’s undeclared voters, who can choose to vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary, citing it as evidence of her liberalness to his GOP base. Doing so lowers expectations for his own performance, with polling indicating a closer race than Iowa‘s caucuses, but it also fuels continued skepticism about elections after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Trump excoriated Haley during his first rally in New Hampshire after his historic win this week in Iowa, painting her record as South Carolina‘s governor and then his representative at the U.N. in a negative light. In addition to Haley’s policy positions on taxes and entitlement reform, Trump criticized her supporters and donors as “pro-open borders, “pro-amnesty,” “pro-China, and “pro-war.”

“As you know, Nikki Haley, in particular, is counting on the Democrats and liberals to infiltrate your Republican primaries,” he told a crowd on Tuesday in Atkinson. “That’s what’s happening. A group of people coming in that are not Republicans, and it’s artificially boosting her numbers here, although we’re still leading her by a lot.”

“The radical Left Democrats are supporting Nikki Haley because they know she’s much easier to beat than Trump,” Trump said on Wednesday in Portsmouth. “A vote for Nikki Haley this Tuesday is a vote for [President] Joe Biden and a Democrat Congress in November because that’s what’s going to happen.”

New Hampshire voters had until Oct. 7 to change their party registration before the second nominating contest on Jan. 23, with 3,542 Democrats re-registering as undeclared and 408 Democrats to Republicans. More than 284,000 people cast a ballot in the state’s GOP primary in 2016, but that has not stopped Trump from amplifying the matter as he holds an average 13-percentage-point lead on Haley. In Iowa, he walked away with a 30-point advantage over her and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).

“New Hampshire is interesting,” Trump said last week during a Fox News televised town hall in Iowa. “It’s a great place, a great state, unbelievable people. But they allow independents and Democrats to vote in the Republican primary. You say, what’s that all about? So, it’s a little bit false in that regard, but even with that, I think we’ll win substantially.”

Trump and DeSantis had similar complaints about Haley in Iowa as she tried to increase her share of the vote with more liberal caucusgoers in the Hawkeye State’s population centers around Des Moines and the University of Iowa.

“In Iowa, you can actually show up as a Democrat on the day of the caucus, change your registration, and then participate in the Republican caucus,” DeSantis said this week during a CNN televised town hall in New Hampshire. “In New Hampshire, you can’t do that. If you’re a declared Democrat, then you — you can’t vote in the primary. So, she was relying on her support for a lot of these Democrats changing their registration on the day of the caucus.”

Haley and her campaign have welcomed the scrutiny, contending Trump is “scared” of her before next week’s primary, with the former president poised to appear in New Hampshire five times during the coming days. He was only scheduled to be in Iowa four times this year ahead of last Monday’s caucuses.

“Nikki has always believed that the Republican Party has to be about addition, not subtraction,” Haley spokeswoman AnnMarie Graham-Barnes told the Washington Examiner. “Republicans have lost the popular vote in the last seven of the eight elections. We lost races we should have won in 2018, 2020, and 2022. If Republicans want to start winning again, we have to start bringing new voters in, not pushing people away.”

For Haley to win New Hampshire’s primary, “she needs as many undeclared voters as possible to show up Tuesday,” according to University of New Hampshire political science professor Dante Scala.

“The more voters who are not normal Republican primary participants, the better,” the professor said. “The Trump campaign knows this and is concerned enough that the super PAC dropped a mail piece that seems directed at independents. It describes Haley as a MAGA Republican. I also have seen Trump canvassing material that makes reference to liberals invading the primary.”

Soren Dayton, the Niskanen Center’s director of governance, agreed that Trump’s comments were mostly about managing expectations before New Hampshire’s primary as he attempts to win the nomination ahead of his criminal trials, which could commence as early as March 4.

“The Donald Trump of 2016 would have considered it a strength that independents were voting for him,” Dayton said. “And in a time of high polarization, having independents vote for you is a key part of winning. I would view the support of independents as a strength today.”

“It’s worth remembering that Trump benefited from independents in New Hampshire and South Carolina in 2016,” he added. “He actually won — well, tied with Rubio — independents in Iowa in 2016, losing Republicans to Cruz.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Trump’s remarks with respect to New Hampshire’s primary come as Biden and Democrats prepare to make the 2024 general election about the importance of democracy, with the incumbent delivering an address at the Civil War historical site of Valley Forge before the third anniversary of Jan. 6. In that context, Trump senior adviser Jason Miller defended Trump’s campaign trail-courtroom trial strategy, which he has tested this month as the former president traveled between Iowa, New Hampshire, and New York for his defamation civil lawsuit involving E. Jean Carroll and his presidential immunity federal court appeal related to special counsel Jack Smith‘s election interference case.

“For Biden’s first speech of 2024, he didn’t give it on inflation. He didn’t give it on securing our southern border, to that crisis. He didn’t give it on restoring peace in the Middle East, didn’t give it on stopping the killing that’s happening between Russia and Ukraine,” Miller said. “Biden is really leading with his chin on this one, and they’ve made it clear that this is what their top messaging is going to be.”