Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis traded barbs during dueling campaign events in the critical early voting state of New Hampshire on Tuesday, amid controversary over the timing of the GOP presidential rivals’ appearances.
DeSantis appeared at a town hall in Hollis while Trump spoke at a lunch in Concord hosted by a Republican women’s club. The two men are considered the frontrunners in the crowded GOP presidential field, with Trump polling well above every Republican candidate and DeSantis consistently sitting in second.
In New Hampshire specifically, a Saint Anselm College Survey Center poll released on Tuesday found 47% of respondents supported Trump while 19% supported DeSantis, a 28-point difference and a finding Trump pointed to in his speech.
Since launching his campaign last month, DeSantis has largely sought to project himself as more conservative than the former president. On Tuesday, DeSantis touted his policies and record in Florida on the border, economy and education.
The Florida governor praised his state’s balanced budget requirement while blasting spending in Washington, adding as president, he would support three amendments: a balanced budget, line-item veto for the president to address specific parts of a budget and term limits for members of Congress.
DeSantis reiterated his concerns about a “culture of losing” for the GOP over the last few election cycles -- often seen as an indirect jab at Trump -- noting Republicans were “supposed to have a massive red wave in 2022” that did not pan out.
"There’s a lot that we need to do, there is a lot that we will do. None of it matters if we don’t win the election,” he said.
When asked directly by a town hall attendee about Trump’s role in the Jan 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, DeSantis said the GOP will lose the 2024 election if it’s about relitigating events that happened two or three years ago. “We cannot be looking backwards and be mired in the past,” he said. DeSantis added he, himself, was nowhere near Washington that day and has nothing to do with what happened.
On the border, DeSantis vowed to “actually” build the U.S.-Mexico border wall that Trump tried but failed to complete as president.
It comes just a day after DeSantis held a campaign event in the Texas border city of Eagle Pass to unveil his first major policy plan, a proposal on immigration and border security that calls for ending birthright citizenship, finishing the U.S.-Mexico wall and sending U.S. forces into Mexico to combat drug cartels. The plan largely mirrors Trump’s policies and faces long odds, requiring the reversal of legal precedents, approval from other countries or even an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Meanwhile, Trump on Tuesday called 2024 “the most important election we’ve ever had,” in a speech that touched on parent’s rights and energy independence and had a significant focus on China, including the recent news China has been operating a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019.
“When I get back in, I will inform China that they have 48 hours to get any military and spy equipment the hell out of Cuba or there will be taxes and tariffs placed,” Trump said.
The former president accused the governor of supporting cuts to Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs as a way to tame federal spending.
Trump also mentioned the two indictments he is facing, calling them a “great, beautiful bade of honor and courage” and telling those in the audience “I’m being indicted for you,” comments that echoed his remarks at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington on Saturday.
Trump’s first-place finish in New Hampshire’s 2016 Republican primary — after losing Iowa to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas — helped propel him to dominance in the party. But his Democratic rivals ended up winning the state in both the 2016 and 2020 general elections.
The Saint Anselm College Survey Center poll found 49% of respondents in New Hampshire would support Biden and 40% would support Trump if the 2024 election was held now and the candidates were Biden and Trump.
Tuesday‘s events are also causing some drama in the state.
The New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women, which hosted Trump, issued a statement last week saying it was disappointed with the DeSantis campaign for scheduling a town hall around the same time as its own event — 40 miles away and a couple of hours before.
The group branded it “an attempt to steal focus from” the organization’s sold-out “Lilac Luncheon” fundraiser and said that other presidential candidates had scheduled around the event. It also said it had asked DeSantis to reschedule, to apparently no avail.
Two members of the women’s group, however, posted on Twitter that they disagreed with the statement. One, former state lawmaker Melissa Blasek, said she was resigning her membership in the group over what she called “a cheap campaign stunt” that appeared to be motivated by the Trump campaign, which sent out its own press release sharing the statement.
During his speech on Tuesday, Trump addressed the controversary saying, DeSantis is “holding an event right now, which is considered not nice.”
When asked to comment on the statement ahead of Tuesday, the DeSantis campaign did not address the issue but said the governor is working to ensure his message “reaches every last primary voter in New Hampshire, and we have a top-notch organization in the state to help him do that.”