Trump starts 2024 run in New Hampshire: ‘I’m angrier now’

“Together we will close the unfinished business of making America great again,” Trump said at an evening event in Columbia to introduce his South Carolina leadership team.

Trump and his allies hope events in states with tremendous power in choosing the candidate will provide a show of force behind the former president after a slow start to his campaign that has seen many question his commitment to running again.

“They said, ‘He doesn’t do rallies, he doesn’t campaign. Maybe he lost that step,'” Trump said at the New Hampshire GOP’s annual meeting in Salem, his first event.

But he told the audience of party leaders, “I’m more angry now and more committed than ever.” In South Carolina, he further dismissed the speculation by saying that “we have huge rallies planned, bigger than ever.”

While Trump has largely spent the months since his announcement at his Florida club and nearby golf course, his aides insist they have been busy behind the scenes. His campaign opened a headquarters in Palm Beach, Florida and hired staff. And in recent weeks, supporters have turned to political activists and elected officials to garner support for Trump at a critical juncture when other Republicans are preparing their own awaited challenges.

In New Hampshire, Trump promoted his campaign agenda, including immigration and crime, and said his policies are the opposite of President Joe Biden’s. He cited the Democrats’ move to change the election calendar, which cost New Hampshire its leading spot, and accused Biden, a fifth-place finisher in New Hampshire in 2020, of “nefariously destroying this beloved political tradition.”

“I hope you will remember this during the general election,” Trump told party members. Trump himself won the primary twice, but lost the state to the Democrats each time.

Later in South Carolina, Trump said he plans to keep the state’s presidential primary as “first in the South,” calling it “a very important state.”

In his speech, he rushed from criticizing Biden and the Democrats to derogatory comments about transgender people, mockery of people promoting the use of electric stoves and electric cars, and recalled efforts as president to increase oil production, secure trade deals and to crack on migration at the US-Mexico border.

GOP challenger

While Trump remains the only declared presidential candidate for 2024, potential challengers are expected to include Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations , will launch their campaigns in the coming months.

In South Carolina, Governor Henry McMaster, US Senator Lindsey Graham and several members of the state’s congressional delegation attended Trump’s event at the Statehouse.

Trump’s team has struggled to garner support from South Carolina lawmakers, even from some who had previously ardently supported him. Some have said that more than a year after the primary is too early to make any confirmations or that they are waiting to see who else will run. Others have said it is time for the party to move past Trump to a new generation of leaders.

South Carolina House Speaker Murrell Smith was among the legislative leaders awaiting Trump’s arrival, although he said he was not there to provide a formal confirmation but to see the former president in his role as speaker in the state to welcome.

Otherwise, dozens of supporters crowded the ceremonial lobby between the House and Senate, vying with reporters and camera crews for a spot between marble-topped tables and a life-size bronze statue of former Vice President John C. Calhoun.

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 are unequivocally anti-abortion, cost the party in November’s election.

“It’s giving some people in the conservative ranks of the Republican Party pause as to whether we need the process to sort itself out,” said Wilson, whose group hosted Pence 2021 for a speech.

But Gerri McDaniel, who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign, dismissed the idea that voters were ready to dump the former president. “Some media keep saying that he is losing his support. No he isn’t,” she said. “It’s only going to get bigger than before because there are so many people who are angry about what’s happening in Washington.”

The South Carolina event was somewhat atypical for a former reality TV star who has typically favored big rallies and attempted to cultivate an outsider image. Rallies are expensive, and Trump added new financial challenges when he decided to start his campaign in November — well earlier than many had called for. This puts him under strict fundraising regulations and prohibits him from using his well-funded Political Action Committee to fund such events, which can cost millions of dollars.

Trump’s campaign has caused controversy in its early stages, notably when he dined with Holocaust-denying white nationalist Nick Fuentes and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who made a string of anti-Semitic comments. Trump was also widely ridiculed for selling a series of digital trading cards depicting him as a superhero, cowboy, and astronaut, among other things.

He is the subject of a number of criminal investigations, including an investigation into the discovery of hundreds of documents with secret markings at his Florida club and whether he obstructed justice by refusing to return them, as well as state and federal investigations of his efforts to overthrow them the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Biden.

Still, early polls show he’s a favorite to win his party’s nomination.

“The gun has been fired and the campaign season has begun,” said Stephen Stepanek, outgoing leader of the New Hampshire Republican Party. Trump announced that Stepanek will serve as senior adviser for his campaign in the state.

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Kinnard reported from Columbia, South Carolina and Colvin from New York. Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this report.

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