SALEM, N.H. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump made a stop in New Hampshire on Saturday before heading to South Carolina for his 2024 White House bid, where his appearance in early voting states will mark his first campaign events since announcing his latest run more than two years ago. Months ago.
See: In the year Trump, who refused to lose the 2020 election, announced a new race for the White House
“We’re just getting started. We’re starting here as a candidate for president,” he told party leaders at the New Hampshire GOP’s annual meeting in Salem, before an afternoon stop in Columbia to introduce his South Carolina leadership team.
Those states will field two of the party’s three nominations, giving them significant leverage in choosing the candidate.
Trump and his allies hope the event will provide a show of strength behind the former president. A slow start to the campaign has left many questioning his commitment to running again. At a critical juncture in recent weeks when other Republicans are preparing their own expected challenges, supporters have turned to political operatives and elected officials for Trump’s support.
“The gun has been fired, and the campaign season has begun,” said Stephen Stepanek, the outgoing chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party. Trump announced that Stepanek will serve as a senior adviser to his campaign in the state.
While Trump remains the only 2024 presidential candidate, his rivals, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, are expected to continue campaigning. In the coming months.
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In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster, US Senator Lindsey Graham and several members of the state’s congressional delegation plan to attend Saturday’s event at the State House. But Trump’s team has struggled to rally support from state lawmakers, even those who have enthusiastically supported them in previous races.
Some have said that more than a year after the primary vote, it’s too early to make an endorsement or that they’re waiting to see who else will enter the race. Others say it’s time for the party to move on from Trump to a new generation of leaders.
The vice chair of the South Carolina state House Freedom Caucus, a Republican state representative, did not attend the Trump event because it focused on that group’s legislative battle with the GOP caucus. He pointed out that it is open to other candidates in the 2024 race.
In the year “I think we’re going to have a very strong field of candidates here in South Carolina,” said May, who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. He added, “100% I’ll take Donald Trump over Joe Biden.”
Dave Wilson, president of Palmetto Family, a conservative Christian nonprofit, said some conservative voters may be concerned about Trump’s recent comments that anti-abortion Republicans have cost the party in the November election.
In the year Wilson, whose group hosted Pence for a speech in 2021, said: “Some people in the conservative ranks of the Republican Party are giving us pause as to whether we need the process to unfold itself.” You have to find your voice. Nothing is taken for granted.
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Acknowledging that Trump has “done some amazing things while he’s been president,” like winning a conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, Wilson said South Carolina’s GOP electorate “could be the candidate who has the standard to build on, not just for now, but to build on.” For the next few decades, he would move toward conservatism across America.
But Gerry McDaniels, who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign and will attend Saturday’s event, dismissed the idea that voters are ready to move on from the former president.
“Some media keep saying he is losing support. No, he’s not,” she said. It will be more than before because there are a lot of people who are angry about what is happening in Washington.
The South Carolina event, surrounded by elected officials at the statehouse, is in some ways a rallying cry for the former reality TV star and an attempt to develop an outsider image. The reality is that Trump is a former president trying to reclaim the White House by comparing his tenure with the current administration.
Rallies are also expensive, and the frugal Trump added new financial challenges when he decided to launch his campaign in November — much earlier than many allies had anticipated. That would force him to follow strict fundraising rules and prevent well-funded leadership from using PACs to pay for such events, which would cost several million dollars.
Officials expect Trump to speak in the State House’s second-floor lobby, a ceremonial spot between the House and Senate chambers.
The place Haley 2015 hosted some South Carolina political news moments, including the signing of legislation to remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds and McMaster’s 2021 bill banning abortions in the state after six weeks of pregnancy. . The state Supreme Court recently ruled the abortion law unconstitutional, and McMaster has vowed to seek a hearing.
Trump’s fledgling campaign has sparked controversy, particularly from Holocaust-cad white nationalist Nick Funtz and rapper ex-Kanye West, who has made a series of anti-Semitic comments. Trump has been mocked by selling a series of digital business cards that look like superheroes, cowboys and astronauts, and more.
See: Trump feeds on white supremacy, renewing questions about GOP leadership and values
At the same time, he is the subject of a series of criminal investigations, including the discovery of hundreds of documents at the Florida club and obstruction of justice for refusing to return them, as well as state and federal challenges. In his bid to overturn the 2020 election results, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
Still, Trump remains the only declared 2024 candidate, and early polls show him favored to win his party’s nomination.
Stepanek, who is expected to remain independent until his term as New Hampshire party chairman expires at Saturday’s caucus, downplayed the importance of Trump’s slow start, which campaign officials say is time spent laying the groundwork for a national campaign.
He said there was a lot of excitement, a lot of excitement for Trump’s re-election in New Hampshire. Trump’s loyal supporters continue to stand behind him, he said.
“You have a lot of people who weren’t with him at 15, 16, then become Trump, and then never pass the trumpet,” Stepanek said. But the people who supported it in New Hampshire in 2010 The people who pushed New Hampshire to win the premiership in 2016 are still there, waiting for the president.
Kinard reported from Columbia, South Carolina, and Colvin from New York.