Trump is scheduled to return to New Hampshire on Saturday

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Former president Donald Trump is set to return to New Hampshire for the first time since 2020 in an attempt to kick-start his 2024 campaign and work with potential challengers.

Trump will be the keynote speaker Saturday at the New Hampshire Republican Parties’ annual convention, according to chairman Stephen Stepanek. Trump, who announced his third run for the presidency on Nov. 15, will address hundreds of the state’s most active Republicans, who will gather to elect statewide party officers.

We are excited to welcome President Trump back to the Granite State to be the keynote speaker at our 2023 annual meeting, Stepanek said in a statement Monday. President Trump has long been a strong defender of New Hampshires First in the Nation primary status and we are excited that he will join us to deliver comments to our members.

Trump’s appearance in Salem, NH, will be his first in-person event outside his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida since he launched his 2024 campaign in mid-November. He is expected to leave the event in New Hampshire and immediately travel to South Carolina where he is scheduled to announce his campaign leaders, including Senator Lindsey Graham and Governor Henry McMaster.

In New Hampshire, Stepanek, the outgoing chairman, will preside over his last annual party meeting. He was among state party leaders across the country who rose up as Trump soldiers in 2016 to run the Republican Party apparatus. Stepanek was one of the state co-chairs for Trump’s first campaign and hosted Trump at his home.

Trump later won the New Hampshire primary in 2016, his first election victory. From there, he began to claw his way to the Republican nomination and the presidency. That said, Trump also lost New Hampshire in the general election in both 2016 and 2020.

In the early lineup of presidential primary contests, it’s unclear which states matter most to Trump. The Iowa caucuses, the first contest, could provide an opportunity for a social conservative to fling Trump to the right. Meanwhile, New Hampshire could be where he is challenged from his left by moderates like former New Jersey governor Chris Christie. Following that contest will be the South Carolina primary, which could complicate matters with Senator Tim Scott and former governor Nikki Haley both potentially seeking the nomination.

Trump has long had ties to New Hampshire as a potential candidate and later as a candidate. Republicans will likely make an argument Saturday that they will hold the nation’s first presidential primary in 2024, and the top candidates are showing up on the campaign trail.

That likely won’t be the case with Democrats, after the Democratic National Committee proposed ending New Hampshire’s century-old primary so that South Carolina could hold the first contest. New Hampshire Democratic Party chairman Ray Buckley revealed in a podcast over the weekend that President Biden won’t even put his name on the ballot in NH if the state doesn’t abandon its first-in-the-nation primary status.

James Pindell can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @jamespindell and on Instagram @jameswpindell.

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