Former President Donald Trump has enjoyed frontrunner status in the 2024 Republican primary for months, according to nationwide polling, but he’s never been closer to securing his party’s third presidential nomination that he was on Sunday night after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced his departure from the race.

At a rally in New Hampshire on Sunday night just hours after DeSantis announced his exit from the race, Trump said he looked forward to working with the Florida governor as the race heads into November's general election.

“I also look forward to working with Ron and everybody else to defeat crooked Joe Biden, we have to get him out," Trump said of the incumbent president, charging: "He's put our country at great peril, at great peril."

Of the only notable Republican challenger left standing, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, he later added: “If you want a losing candidate who puts America last, vote for Nikki Haley.”

Haley, meanwhile, grasped on DeSantis’ decision at her own rally in New Hampshire on Sunday, seeking to emphasize that she was Republicans' last, best hope to nominate a new candidate. But if recent polling is any indication, a majority of Republicans in New Hampshire, who vote in their primary on Tuesday, and throughout the country seem uninterested in that proposition: A new CNN poll conducted after Trump's victory in last week's Iowa caucuses found that the former president has 50% of support among likely GOP primary voters in New Hampshire, compared ot 39% for Haley.

Knowing this, Trump bid DeSantis adieu at his Sunday night rally in Rochester, N.H., and urged his supporters to run up the margin on Haley to push her out of the race as quickly as possible to send a message to President Biden.

“Don't believe the polls. Assume that we're down one instead of up 30 or whatever it is. We're up by a lot,” Trump said. “But pretend we're down by one and you go and you wake up your husband and you say, ‘Harry, we're going to vote.’” 

At a rally of her own in Exeter, N.H., at the same time, Haley argued she could still beat Trump in the primary and was the better candidate to lead her party to victory against Biden, pointing to both mens’ relative unpopularity with the American public.

“I voted for Donald Trump twice. I was proud to serve America and his administration. I agree with a lot of his policies. But rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him. You know I'm right, chaos follows him,” Haley said. “And we can't have a country in disarray and a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos, we won't survive it. And so in order to really take that on, you have to understand you don't fix Democrat chaos with Republican chaos. We have to move forward with a new generational conservative leader.”

But Republicans largely seem not to want a new leader to take on Trump’s mantle. More than 50% of Iowa caucusgoers preferred the original edition over both Haley and DeSantis last week. And a pair of polls show that  over 50% of likely New Hampshire GOP primary voters think the same. 

A Suffolk University/Boston Globe/NBC-10 poll has surveyed roughly 500 likely voters every day since Wednesday and found Trump’s support in New Hampshire is above 50% and growing while Haley is stuck in the mid-30s. A CNN/University of New Hampshire poll released on Sunday had Trump at 50% and Haley at 39%. Those results are in line with weeks of public polling in the state showing Trump with a 10 to 15 percentage point lead. (The polls were conducted prior to DeSantis dropping out of the race.)

He’s polling even better in states later in the primary calendar, including Haley’s home state of South Carolina — whose governor and legislative leaders he rallied with on Saturday. In the Palmetto State, where Haley served as governor for two terms, Trump is averaging around 61% to Haley’s roughly 25%, according to the polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight. The GOP primary there, the next contest where Haley and Trump would face each other, is on Feb. 24.

Haley has leaned on endorsements in New Hampshire, particularly that of popular GOP Gov. Chris Sununu, who is nearly always by her side on the campaign trail, and landed the backing of the influential New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper on Sunday. Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, another popular Republican state executive, also offered her his endorsement over the weekend. At Sunday night's rally in Exeter, she was introduced by celebrity television judge Judy Sheindlin, another prominent backer.

“We've gotten burned and then when you go back and you put your hand in front of the flame again you say ‘you know what? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” Sheindlin said. “We've already seen what these two presidencies look like. It's time for Nikki Haley. This is her moment. She is a star.”

But Trump has consolidated support within the party, locking up dozens of senators, congress members, governors and other key players, including four former rivals in just the last week: DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. Discussed as a possible vice presidential pick for Trump, Scott was appointed to his Senate seat by Haley when she was governor, but said he chose to endorse Trump not because of his character or personal allegiances but because of the primary frontrunner's ability to be a “strong president” on conservative economic issues.

“I'm not asking a question about who's from my home state. I'm not asking a question who would be a good person or a better person,” Scott said on CNN’s “State of the Union" on Sunday. "I think President Donald Trump is a strong president, will be a strong president again and will have the kind of accomplishments that will unite this nation around economic opportunity.”

After thanking DeSantis and criticizing Haley in his remarks on Sunday night, Trump moved on to his typical rally speech, launching attacks on Biden, the political media, “the deep state” and “warmongers” in Washington, and the criminal justice that has indicted him four times, with 91 felony charges pending in multiple trials.

He devoted more time to criticizing Haley than to praising DeSantis, casting her as a tool of the political establishment he has flouted. He made sweeping promises of peace and prosperity, pledging without offering any detailed plans that he would reverse inflation and end Russia's war in Ukraine. And he repeated falsehoods that his loss to Biden in 2020 was due to fraud, claims rejected by numerous officials and courts throughout the country, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

A boisterous crowd at the historic opera house in Rochester laughed, chanted and roared throughout his remarks Sunday.

“The great silent majority is rising like never before,” Trump answered.

On Monday, Trump was set to be in New York at a civil defamation trial stemming from a columnist’s claims he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s, but the proceedings were postponed after a juror fell ill. He is set to return to New Hampshire for an evening rally in Laconia.

“I don't have to be there,” he said of the court proceedings. “I could use your prayers. But look, it is what it is.”

His first criminal trial, stemming from charges that he is responsible for his supporters' Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, is scheduled to begin on March 4, the day before the Super Tuesday primary slate on March 5.

“I got indicted more than [organized crime leader] Alphonse Capone,” Trump said. “Can you believe it?”