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Manchester, Feb. 12 (PTI/AP): President Donald Trump has easily won New Hampshire's Republican primary against minimal opposition.
Trump was declared the winner as polls in the state closed Tuesday night.
Four years ago, the state offered Trump his first primary victory and helped catapult him to the White House. But Trump narrowly lost New Hampshire to Democrat Hillary Clinton in the November general election.
Trump has benefited from strong support from the Republican Party since then, and his campaign has worked to seize control of the nominating process to turn August's GOP convention into a four-day infomercial for his campaign.
The president held a rally in Manchester on Monday night and deployed surrogates throughout the state Tuesday. It was an effort both to energize supporters and to do a test-run of the campaign's organizing efforts for November. New Hampshire is viewed as the most likely Clinton state to swing toward Trump.
Polls have begun closing in New Hampshire for the state's first-in-the-nation presidential primary.
Bernie Sanders is fighting for Democratic front-runner status Tuesday. The party is hoping the primary will bring some clarity to a presidential nomination fight that has so far been marred by dysfunction and doubt.
Polls started closing at 7 p.m. in some areas of the state and will close at 8 p.m. in other parts.
Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg is hoping to seize the backing of his party's establishment with a strong finish, while former Vice President Joe Biden looks to avert political disaster. He left the state for South Carolina before polls closed.
By night's end, New Hampshire could begin culling the Democrats' unwieldy 2020 class, which still features nearly a dozen candidates.
Catch up on the 2020 election campaign with AP experts on our weekly politics podcast, Ground Game.