Trump kicks off 2024 White House bid with early state visits – National

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Former President Donald Trumpis set to kick off his 2024 White House bid on Saturday with visits to a pair of early voting states, his first campaign events since announcing his latest run more than two months ago .

Trump will be the keynote speaker at the New Hampshire GOP’s annual meeting before traveling to Columbia, South Carolina, where he is scheduled to introduce his state leadership team. New Hampshire and South Carolina hold two of the first three party nominating contests, giving them enormous power in choosing the nominee.

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Trump and his allies hope the events will offer a show of force behind the former president after a sluggish start to his campaign that has left many questioning his commitment to running again. In recent weeks, his supporters have reached out to political operatives and elected officials to drum up support for Trump, a critical juncture when other Republicans are preparing their expected challenges.

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“The gun has been fired, and the campaign season has begun,” said Stephen Stepanek, the outgoing chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party who served as co-chair of Trump’s 2016 campaign in the state.

While Trump remains the only declared 2024 presidential candidate, potential challengers, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who has been Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, is expected to continue her campaign in the coming months.

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In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster, US Sen. Lindsey Graham and several members of the state’s congressional delegation attended Saturday’s event at the Statehouse. But Trump’s team has struggled to line up support from state lawmakers, even some who have eagerly backed him in previous runs.

Some said more than a year from primary voting is too soon to make endorsements or that they are waiting to see who else enters the race. Others say it’s time for the party to transition Trump to a new generation of leadership.

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Republican state Rep. RJ May, vice chair of the House Freedom Caucus of the state of South Carolina, that he will not attend Trump’s event because he is focused on that group’s legislative battle with the GOP caucus. He has indicated that he is open to other candidates in the 2024 race.

“I think we’re going to have a very strong slate of candidates here in South Carolina,” said May, who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. She added, “100% I’d take DonaldTrumpover Joe Biden.”

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Dave Wilson, president of the conservative Christian nonprofit Palmetto Family, said some conservative voters may have concerns about Trump’s recent comments that Republicans who oppose abortion without exception have cost the party in the November elections.

“It gives pause to some people within the conservative ranks of the Republican Party as to whether or not we need the process to work itself out,” said Wilson, whose group hosted Pence for a speech on 2021. He added: “You still have to get your vote. Nothing is taken away.”

Acknowledging that Trump “did some amazing things when he was president,” like securing a conservative majority on the US Supreme Court, Wilson said South Carolina’s GOP voters could looking for “a candidate who can be the standard-bearer not only for now but to build continued momentum across America for conservatism over the next several decades.”

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But Gerri McDaniel, who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign and will attend Saturday’s event, rejected the idea that voters are ready to move on from the former president.

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“Some in the media keep saying that he is losing support. No, he’s not,” he said. “It’s going to be bigger than ever because so many people are upset about what’s going on in Washington.”

The event in South Carolina, in a government building, surrounded by elected officials, was in some ways uncharacteristic for a former reality television star who usually favors large rallies and has tried to cultivate an outward image. . But the truth is that Trump is a former president who is seeking to reclaim the White House by varying his time in office with the current administration.

Rallies are also expensive, and Trump, notoriously frugal, added new financial challenges when he decided to start his campaign in November _ earlier than many allies had urged. As such, he is subject to strict fundraising regulations and is barred from using his well-funded leadership PAC to pay for such events, which can cost several million dollars.

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Officials expect Trump to speak in the Statehouse’s second-floor lobby, a lavish ceremonial space between the House and Senate chambers.

The venue has played host to some of South Carolina’s most high-profile political news moments, including Haley’s 2015 signing of a bill to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse grounds and McMaster’s 2021 signing of legislation banning the abortion in the state after approximately six weeks of pregnancy. The state Supreme Court recently ruled the abortion law unconstitutional, and McMaster has vowed to seek a rehearing.

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Trump’s nascent campaign has already sparked controversy, most notably when he had dinner with Holocaust-denying white nationalist Nick Fuentes and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who made a series of antisemitic comments. trading cards depicting him as a superhero, a cowboy and an astronaut, among others.

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At the same time, he is the subject of a series of criminal investigations, including one into the discovery of hundreds of documents with classified marks at his Florida club and whether he obstructed justice by refusing to return the this, as well as state and federal tests. of his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

However, Trump remains the only announced candidate in 2024, and early polls show him as the favorite to win his party’s nomination.

Stepanek, who is required to remain neutral until the end of his term as New Hampshire party chair at the party’s convention on Saturday, dismissed the importance of Trump’s slow start, which campaign officials say is due to the time spent putting of infrastructure in place for a national campaign.

In New Hampshire, he said, “there was a lot of hope, a lot of excitement” for Trump’s re-election. He said Trump’s staunchest supporters continue to stand behind him.

“You have a lot of people who weren’t with him in `15, ’16, then became Trumpers, then became never-Trumpers,” Stepanek said. “But the people who supported him in New Hampshire, who pushed him to his win in 2016 in the New Hampshire primary, they’re all still there, waiting for the president.”

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