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Trump Chases a Tiny 2020 Prize to Keep Spotlight Off Democrats

Trump Goes to New Hampshire Lest Democrats Steal the Spotlight

(Bloomberg) -- As his potential challengers crisscross New Hampshire to convince voters they should be their party’s nominee, President Donald Trump is one step ahead of them -- preparing for a general election campaign that will cast Democratic policies as out of the mainstream.

Trump arrives for a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, Thursday with a goal of winning a state he lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016 by a margin of just 2,736 votes. He’ll ask voters there to “reject the socialist government takeover agenda of the Democrats,” according to a Trump campaign statement.

Why New Hampshire? With just four electoral votes, it’s a relatively small prize -- and one that will make a difference only in the rarest of close-call scenarios.

Trump Chases a Tiny 2020 Prize to Keep Spotlight Off Democrats

With liberal firebrands Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren campaigning in the state most of the week, it’s a good chance for Trump to troll the Democrats a bit. Trump also tweeted early Thursday that his former aide Corey Lewandowski will be joining him at the rally “amid rumors of a Senate run.”

And New Hampshire’s low jobless rate and reputation as a presidential kingmaker may make it as good a place as any to make an economic argument for his re-election.

It’s also where Trump’s unlikely 2016 GOP nomination went from improbable to possible, with a 20-point victory over Ohio Governor John Kasich after losing Iowa to Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

That primary win “was really something special,”Trump told WGIR radio in New Hampshire on Thursday. He said he’s keeping New Hampshire at the top of the list of contested battleground states in 2020. “You know, they were talking about moving it way down and I said ‘that’s not going to happen.’ And I kept my word,” he said.

Bid for Votes

New Hampshire is “ripe for President Trump to add to his column,” Trump campaign deputy press secretary Daniel Bucheli said in a statement. “With so many jobs created and America leading the world again, the Granite State will go for President Trump next year.”

It won’t be easy for Trump to carry the state. A Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll in April had Trump losing to an unnamed Democratic candidate 43% to 40%. The same poll had Trump’s approval rating at 45% -- the highest it’s been in New Hampshire but still under 50%.

Few polls are asking residents of a particular state about their preferences in a general election. But an Emerson Poll last February found Trump trailing both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire by 55% to 45%. Elizabeth Warren led Trump 52% to 48%.

The unemployment rate -- already at a low 2.8% when Trump took office -- was a seasonally adjusted 2.5% in July. Only Iowa and Vermont have lower jobless rates.

Trump Chases a Tiny 2020 Prize to Keep Spotlight Off Democrats

“All you’ve got to do is drive down the road and almost every business has a ‘help’ sign on it. Business owners are having a hard time finding help,” said Trump supporter Richard Basnar, 58, a sporting-goods store owner from Littleton. “I think he’s done a real good job on the economy.”

Trump lost the state by 0.4 percentage points in 2016, but actually winning it next year is no mean feat. The state has been susceptible to the gradual shift that has made New England inhospitable to Republicans over the last generation. It has voted for Democratic presidential candidates in six of the last seven elections, and its two senators and two members of Congress are Democrats.

New Hampshire hasn’t been a frequent stop for the president. Since his election, Trump has held eight rallies in Florida, six in Pennsylvania, and six in Ohio. Even Montana, which he won by more than 20 percentage points, has seen four rallies. This is his first campaign visit to New Hampshire since the day before the 2016 primary.

The pro-Trump super PAC America First Action has no current plans to spend money in New Hampshire, according to spokeswoman Kelly Sadler. The group, and its affiliated non-profit America First Policies, said it had raised a combined $17.8 million in the first half of this year.

“When you lost a state by a point, it’s like losing by a coin flip. So it would be insane for the campaign not to compete there in 2020. I believe he can flip it,” said Andy Surabian, a Republican strategist and former Trump White House official. “It’s a state where I think President Trump’s tone plays really well. It’s working-class. I think President Trump plays better there than typical blue-blooded Republicans.”

While Sanders’ and Warren’s big government themes play well in their home states of Vermont and Massachusetts, respectively, New Hampshire, a neighbor, is known for its independent streak.

“Does anybody really think that everything for free is going to work?” said Thad Presby, 48, owner of Presby Construction Company in Franconia. “Government can’t run anything efficiently,” he said. “Anybody that runs a business knows that.”

He said he’d consider voting for a Democrat but the current options don’t appeal to him. And he said Trump’s economic policies are working. “If you look New England-wide, there’s no one from here to Connecticut that’s not busy, that’s not turning away work.”

The value of residential building permits in New Hampshire this year was $401 million through June, up 30% from the same period two years before.

Still, the state’s economy is growing slower than the national average, with the agricultural, manufacturing, wholesale and transportation sectors particularly sluggish, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Though Trump faces Republican primary opposition from William Weld -- the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts -- Trump isn’t paying him any attention. Tellingly, he’s never tweeted about Weld.

A CNN poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire in July showed Trump with 86% support among Republican voters to Weld’s 7%.

To contact the reporters on this story: Gregory Korte in Washington at gkorte@bloomberg.net;Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou in Franconia, New Hampshire at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.net;Jordan Fabian in Washington at jfabian6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Joe Sobczyk

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.