Trump campaign eyes New Hampshire as Harris visits to make her economic pitch

The Trump campaign is increasingly eyeing New Hampshire as a potential pickup in the 2024 election, targeting the Granite State in its media releases and in the former president’s own direct posts.

Though it boasts only four electoral votes, New Hampshire could prove decisive in the event of a close election. The latest RealClearPolitics electoral projection currently assigns Harris 273 electoral votes to Trump’s 265. Should Trump flip the state, it would make the difference between a win for Vice President Kamala Harris and a tied election.

The state has not backed a Republican at the presidential level since 2000, when it broke for President George W. Bush, though the state’s margins have been close in subsequent cycles. At present, the state is just within tossup territory. The RCP average currently assigns Harris a 5.0% lead based on three polls from the University of New Hampshire, St. Anselm, and WHDH-TV/Emerson.

That margin is narrower than the 7.2% by which President Joe Biden carried the state in 2020, but still significantly greater than the 0.3% margin that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed in 2016.

But Republicans seem to see opportunity in the state and have suggested that Harris’s visit this week signals that the Democrats are aware of their vulnerability there. “[S]omeone should ask her campaign why she's spending time in a Democrat-leaning state?” the campaign quipped in a press release.

Trump’s campaign further pointed to the concerns of small business owners in the state, highlighting several of whom contrasted economic conditions under Trump and the current administration.

"Under the Biden-Harris Administration, cost of living has skyrocketed for Granite State families and cost of doing business has soared for small businesses,” said one local business owner in a Trump press release. “It's simply unaffordable for too many working families and small business owners, and Kamala only wants to make it worse.”

The economic pitch is in keeping with Trump’s conventional messaging and comes in contrast to Harris’s own pitch to small business owners, which she touted during her Wednesday campaign stop.

Trump himself addressed conditions in the state in a recent Truth Social post, claiming that “the cost of living in New Hampshire is through the roof, their energy bills are some of [the] highest in the country, and their housing market is the most unaffordable in history.”

But Trump has pointed to more state-specific issues upon which he hopes to seize, namely the Democrats’ alteration of their primary schedule to boot New Hampshire from its traditional first-in-the-nation position.

"Comrade Kamala Harris sees there are problems for her campaign in New Hampshire because of the fact that they disrespected it in their primary and never showed up," Trump also said. "I protected New Hampshire's First-In-The-Nation Primary and ALWAYS will!”

This cycle, the Democrats adjusted their primary schedule to place South Carolina ahead of both Iowa and New Hampshire. DNC Chair Jaime Harrison in February 2023, said the change “puts Black voters at the front of the process in South Carolina.”

Despite the party changing the schedule, New Hampshire nonetheless held a primary in January that did not include President Joe Biden on the ballot. The incumbent president managed to win the contest anyway through a write-in campaign. 

Speaking to Just the News, Trump Campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, a New Hampshire native, suggested that the Democrats’ schedule change could tangibly impact Harris’s efforts there.

"No amount of campaigning in New Hampshire will make up for the fact that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris screwed over our state by abandoning our beloved first-in-the-nation primary tradition,” she said. “Granite Staters will not vote for dangerously liberal Kamala Harris, whose policies as vice president have increased our energy bills and created the most unaffordable housing market in New Hampshire's history."

Though Republicans have not won New Hampshire in a presidential contest for nearly a quarter-century, the state has typically been more favorable to Republicans at the state level. Gov. Chris Sununu, R-N.H., has held the top post since 2017, winning four straight terms. His father, John Sununu, was the state's governor from 1983 to 1989 and served as White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush from 1989 to 1991. The state’s last Republican senator, was Kelly Ayotte, who lost reelection in 2016.

Trump managed to win the New Hampshire Republican primary earlier this year, but the state stood at the center of internal Republican efforts to keep him from winning the nomination. Sununu, by far the most prominent Republican in the state, threw his support behind former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley during the primary. At the time, Haley had become the last serious challenger to Trump for the party nomination.

After Haley dropped out, Sununu fell in line behind Trump, saying “I’m going to support Donald Trump. But my focus is definitely going to be here in the state,” CNN reported. Sununu has not been a fixture of Trump campaign events, however, and the Trump campaign did not respond to queries after a prospective appearance by the governor at any rallies.

Despite the 54% to 43% split for Trump during the GOP primary, his relatively strong performance in general election polling seems to suggest that internal divisions within the state GOP have somewhat mended.

The campaign evidently finds the situation conducive to a potential Republican flip and has invested at least some resources there already. A Trump campaign official told Just the News that “[w]e have maintained an enthusiastic presence on the ground with an office, paid staff, and hundreds of volunteers.”