Trump held first campaign events

Former President Donald Trump has officially launched his campaign to become head of state again after the 2024 election. The first official meetings with supporters of the 45th president as part of his new campaign took place in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The events in the states, which are hosting some of the nation’s first party primaries, were the first appearances for Trump in his next campaign, which the former president inaugurated more than two months ago.

“Together we will finish unfinished business and make America great again,” Trump said at an evening event in Columbia, introducing sympathetic politicians from South Carolina.

Trump and his allies are hoping that events in states with enormous power in the initial choice of a candidate’s name will demonstrate the power behind the former president. In fact, the somewhat sluggish start to the campaign has already led some of his supporters to question how much Trump wants to be president again.

“They were saying, ‘He’s not participating in rallies, he’s not campaigning. Maybe he’s lost his former grip,'” Trump said, speaking at the annual meeting of the New Hampshire chapter of the Republican Party in Salem.

Addressing party leaders, Trump said, “I’m angrier and more committed now than I’ve ever been before.” In South Carolina, he also denied the rumors, saying that “he has major rallies planned – more than ever before.”

That said, the Democratic Party’s campaign headquarters in Florida has already opened in Palm Beach.

In New Hampshire, Trump promoted his campaign agenda, which includes tackling immigration and crime, and said his policies would be the opposite of those of President Joe Biden. He referred to the Democrats’ attempt to change the primary election calendar, which cost New Hampshire the lead of all states, and accused Biden, who finished fifth in New Hampshire in 2020, of “shamefully destroying this beloved political tradition.”

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

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

While Trump remains the only announced presidential candidate for 2024, potential contenders, including Florida Governor Ron Desantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who was Trump’s post-empowerment ambassador to the United Nations, are expected to begin their campaigns soon.

After speaking in South Carolina, Trump told the Associated Press that if Desantis suddenly ran against him in the primary, choosing to take advantage of his success in the Florida midterm elections, it would only show “disloyalty”

“If he runs, that’s OK. I’m leading in the polls,” Trump said. – He needs to do what his voters supported him for again. I really think that would be a very disloyal thing to do.”

He said he hasn’t spoken to Desantis in a while.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, Senator Lindsey Graham and several members of the state’s congressional delegation attended Trump’s event in the main legislature.

Team Trump is struggling to win the support of South Carolina lawmakers, even those who have fervently supported him in the past. Some say that the primary is more than a year away and that it is too early to unequivocally support just one candidate, and that they are waiting to see who else will enter the race. Other Republicans say it’s time for the party to move on from older stalwarts like Trump to a new generation of leaders.

South Carolina House Speaker Murrell Smith was among the legislative leaders awaiting Trump’s arrival.

Dave Wilson, president of the conservative Christian nonprofit Palmetto Family, said some conservative voters may be concerned about Trump’s recent comments that it was unapologetically anti-abortion Republican statements that cost the party its victory in the November election.

“It makes some people in the conservative ranks of the Republican Party wonder whether we need to let the process run its course,” said Wilson, whose group organized Pence’s 2021 speech.

But Jerry McDaniel, who worked on Trump’s campaign staff in 2016, rejected the idea that voters were ready to give up on the former president.

“Some media keep saying he’s losing his support. No, he’s not,” she said. – It’s only going to be more than it was before because so many people are unhappy with what’s going on in Washington.”

Trump’s early campaign has already sparked controversy, especially when he dined with Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist who denies the Holocaust, and rapper Ya, formerly known as Kanye West, who made a number of anti-Semitic comments. Trump has also been widely ridiculed for selling a series of digital collectible cards depicting him as a superhero, a cowboy and an astronaut, among others.

He is the subject of a number of criminal investigations, including the discovery of hundreds of classified documents at his club in Florida and whether he obstructed justice by refusing to return them, as well as state and federal probes into his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results that he lost to Biden.

Nevertheless, current polls show him as the favorite to win the nomination from his party.

“We’ve made a trial run and election season has begun,” said Stephen Stepanek, the outgoing chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party. Trump has announced that Stepanek will become a senior adviser to his staff on all New Hampshire issues.

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