The former president plunged back into campaign mode with state Republican Party activists as he hit the road for the first public events of his 2024 White House bid.
Former President Donald Trump plunged back into campaign mode Saturday, stumping in New Hampshire with state Republican Party activists as he hit the road for the first public events of his 2024 bid for the White House.
“We stopped the communists, we stopped the Marxists,” Trump said of his single term in office. “And if we don’t stop them next time, I think this will be the end,” he told 413 party officials gathered at Salem High School in Salem, NH for the state GOP’s annual meeting.Since declaring in November his plans to run for a second non-consecutive term, Trump has
— rather than his raucous trademark rallies — to win back the loyalty of Republicans disillusioned by his bombastic style and his fixation on his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden.Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by 12 points among New Hampshire Republicans — even though the former president remains the GOP’s only announced presidential candidate.
Members of the Proud Boys New Hampshire were out side Salem High School before former President Donald Trump’s speaking engagement.Since declaring his plans to run for a second term, Trump has stuck to video-released policy statements to win back the loyalty of Republicans after his 2020 loss.The poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire, found DeSantis was the choice of 42% of likely GOP primary voters, with Trump at 30% — a difference well outside the sample’s 5.2% margin of error.
“I hear [DeSantis] might want to run against me, so we’ll handle that the way I handle things,” Trump said on Jan. 16,The state’s first-in-the-nation primary status makes it crucial to Trump’s nomination chances. But his popularity there crumbled during his presidency: he lost New Hampshire to Joe Biden by 7 points in 2020, after coming within a single point of beating Hillary Clinton there in 2016.