Saturday’s trip will serve as an early barometer of Trump’s support and his message. The former president will be stumping in two states where he triumphed in the 2016 primary, the last time there was an open race for the GOP nomination. But he has so far struggled to reignite the energy of previous runs and has until now foregone the usual barnstorming after a campaign kickoff. Some Republicans have been openly critical and many longtime allies are holding off on endorsements as a potentially crowded field takes shape, even as polls show Trump at or near the top.
“What campaign?” said Terry Sullivan, the campaign manager for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential run in 2016, when asked how he thought Trump’s first couple months were going. He pointed to Trump’s widely criticized dinner with the rapper Ye and Nick Fuentes, both known for their antisemitic views, as his most notable activity since announcing.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s campaign, said in a statement the former president plans this weekend to “unveil his leadership teams, which will show the significant support he has from grassroots leaders to elected officials.” He added, “There is no one else who can generate enthusiasm and excitement like President Trump.”
Yet many Republicans are looking beyond the ex-president as public opinion surveys show that Ron DeSantis would be a formidable Trump challenger, with one finding the Florida governor leading Trump in the Granite State while other candidates trail far behind. The party’s disappointing losses in three straight elections also weigh on the minds of Republicans who blame Trump for elevating flawed and untested candidates who embraced his grievances and false claims in the midterms.
In 2016, Trump ran as an outsider who took aim at the GOP establishment and pulled off an upset; in 2020, he marched to the nomination as an incumbent. Now he is in a more uncertain position and facing several investigations.
Saturday’s events will provide more insight into Trump’s pitch to and reception from voters as he competes with DeSantis and other potential rivals for the spotlight. Since launching his campaign in November with a speech at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, Trump has done little in the way of traditional campaign activities, leading some Republicans to question his commitment to the 2024 race. Rather than holding the big rallies he is known for, Trump has blasted out endorsements and policy ideas on Truth Social, his social media platform.
The setup of his campaign stops could further underscore the contrast with past campaigns, as Trump joins Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) and others at a smaller gathering for which allies struggled to enlist wider support.
But among critics and allies, few are ready to count out Trump, who has a long history of defying expectations. His campaign won a victory this past week as Meta said it would reinstate Trump’s account on Facebook and Instagram, important fundraising tools for the former president in the past. The company suspended him for two years after a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, animated by Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Trump’s praise and encouragement of the rioters prompted his swift banishment.
Polls have underscored Trump’s vulnerability this time around, with recent surveys giving DeSantis an edge in head-to-head contests. A Marquette Law School poll released this week found that nationally, 64 percent of Republican and right-leaning voters favored DeSantis and 36 percent backed Trump when choosing between just the two of them.
Bill Bowen, a New Hampshire GOP delegate who will be at Saturday’s meeting, said many Republicans he talks with have a clear takeaway from the midterms, where Trump boosted candidates who fell short in the general election in critical races — including swing-state New Hampshire’s Senate contest.
People think “we really need a candidate who can appeal more to the middle,” Bowen said in an interview Friday, adding that “the question is, how do you do that without alienating Trump-ish voters?” To Bowen, the answer is DeSantis.
Ahead of his events in New Hampshire and South Carolina, Trump released a video laying out how he would fight “the radical left” in education, leaning into an issue where DeSantis in particular has delighted the conservative base by restricting what schools can teach. Trump promised to “cut federal funding for any school or program pushing critical race theory” — an academic framework for understanding racism that has drawn conservative ire nationwide — as well as “gender ideology or other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto our children.”
Trump also recently weighed in on Republicans’ debate over entitlement programs, warning the party not to make cuts to Medicare and Social Security as some GOP lawmakers push for major changes as a condition of raising the debt limit later this year. Democrats have attacked Republicans extensively for raising the possibility of cuts, even as many Republican leaders distance themselves from the idea.
Democrats repeated their criticism of Trump as extreme ahead of Saturday’s events. Democratic National Committee spokesperson Ammar Moussa took aim at the former president in a statement focused on Trump’s role in overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to abortion, and also criticized him for “fringe policies and divisive rhetoric.”
Trump is set to address the New Hampshire GOP meeting at noon in Salem. New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu — who has been highly critical of Trump and has not ruled out a presidential run of his own — is not planning to attend, his office told local news station NBC 5.
Later in the day in South Carolina, two other potential 2024 candidates will also be conspicuously absent from Trump’s event: Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who served as United Nations ambassador under Trump and once said she wouldn’t run if the former president did. People close to Scott and Haley say both are seriously considering presidential runs, one obstacle to Trump’s efforts to lock down support in South Carolina.
The fact that Haley and two other members of Trump’s Cabinet — former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former vice president Mike Pence — are all mulling runs is one signal that “we’re not just going in lockstep with our former president,” said Bob Vander Plaats, an influential evangelical leader in Iowa who has urged the GOP to move on from Trump.
“The field is exceptionally wide open,” Vander Plaats said.
Graham, who is expected to endorse Trump on Saturday, has been arguing that people should get behind Trump because he is likely to win the nomination, according to people familiar with the calls who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private conversations. Some state lawmakers told Trump’s team they could not attend, people familiar with the conversations said.
Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey contributed to this report.
