INEVITABLY, Donald Trump won Tuesday’s New Hampshire Republican primary, solidifying the position he has held all along — as the equally inevitable Republican nominee for a return to the US presidency.

Despite the 91 criminal charges he faces; the documented 30,573 false or misleading claims he made during his previous four-year stint as US president; and the accusations of rape against him by at least 26 women, Trump’s popularity remains at an all-time high.

Indeed, this singular ability to defy decency and the law likely boosted Trump’s chances in New Hampshire, where non-conformism is less an aspiration than a way of life.

New Hampshire is the only state in the country where wearing a car seatbelt is not mandatory for adults. It is one of only three states  — along with Iowa and Illinois — that does not require motorcyclists to wear crash helmets. Appropriately, the state motto is “Live free or die.”

Unlike other states where only registered Democrats can vote in their primary, and registered Republicans in theirs, New Hampshire allows “undeclared” or independents to vote on either primary ballot.

Thus, reporters were able to find citizens who had voted for Trump in the last election, cast their ballots for Republican Trump rival, Nikki Haley, on Tuesday, but planned to vote Democrat in November’s presidential election.

In New Hampshire, a driving issue for Trump supporters was immigration and “the Southern border,” even though New Hampshire is about as far away as you can get from the US-Mexico border.

No-one seemed to mind or even notice that Trump never completed his infamous wall and that the section that was built was funded not by Mexico, as Trump had promised, but by US taxpayers to the tune of more than $16 billion.

There was a glimmer of hope for Haley, however, who will stay in the race despite her loss on Tuesday. New Hampshire’s independents — 47 per cent of all registered voters in the state — came out strongly for the former South Carolina governor, who also served as US ambassador to the UN under the previous Trump administration.

However, some pollsters concluded that many were voting against Trump rather than for Haley. Registered Republicans remained loyal to Trump who scored 54.5 per cent of the New Hampshire vote to Haley’s 43.2 per cent.

Haley is now the lone Republican challenger to Trump after the departure of Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor’s failed strategy was to present himself as a cheap Trump knock-off, effectively asking voters to buy the fake Gucci bag you might find at a street market when Trump was offering them the genuine article for free.

Haley will endeavour to distinguish herself from Trump, but it would be a mistake to view her as a moderate. A daughter of Indian immigrants, she favours mass deportations of so-called “illegals,” the abolition of sanctuary cities that provide refugees and asylum-seekers safe haven, and opposes abortion.

Most notoriously, when asked during a New Hampshire campaign stop what triggered the US civil war, she failed to mention slavery, its root cause.

Incumbent Joe Biden was not even on the New Hampshire Democratic primary ballot on Tuesday. But he won handily as a write-in, with 51 per cent of the vote, besting second-place Dean Phillips who scored just under 20 per cent, proving that, at least in New Hampshire, some people actually know who Phillips is.

But a New Hampshire Trump voter told a radio interviewer that Biden was drawing the country into “world war three,” a fear also shared by progressives in the Democratic Party, whom Biden risks losing as he continues to support — and arm — Israel and its genocidal attack on Palestinians in Gaza.

A Biden-Trump face-off in November could see disgusted progressives staying home, a decision that could hand a victory to Trump and autocracy.

Back in New Hampshire before Tuesday’s primary, Trump supporters were interviewed outside a rally in Wolfeboro by, appropriately, a reporter from a comedy show.

Jordan Klepper of The Daily Show has made a name for himself by gently exposing the denialism and often absurdly hypocritical views held by Trump’s loyal base. But beneath the humour lies a warning.

Klepper asked a Maga-hat-wearing Trump couple about their favourite rally so far. “January 6,” they declared proudly. It went fine, said the man, “aside from all the violence that was planned by the FBI” and carried about by “Antifa, Black Lives Matter, ISIS and MS-13.” (The latter refers to Mara Salvatrucha-13, a US-based Salvadorian criminal gang.)

Not Maga then, asked Klepper, pointing to their hats. “Anyone can put a Maga hat on,” the woman quickly interjected. And in New Hampshire on Tuesday, pretty much anyone did.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the founder of the non-profit Beyond Nuclear — Beyondnuclearinternational.org.