(Republicaninformer.com)- Last Saturday, former President Donald Trump finally kicked off his 2024 presidential campaign by delivering a keynote speech at the annual meeting of the New Hampshire Republican Party.
For his keynote address, Trump delivered what was described as a “bitter” and “crazy” speech, riddled with factual errors, including Trump’s claim that he won New Hampshire in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections (he didn’t).
During his 55-minute speech, Trump blasted the Biden administration policies that have led to a crisis at the southern border, a fentanyl epidemic, and a “woke” military, saying that after two years of Joe Biden, “I’m more angry now” than he ever was.
The former president also railed against the FBI for trashing his home when they raided Mar-a-Lago in August and once again returned to his claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
According to Axios, Trump’s first campaign speech “generated little of the excitement that has long defined his glitzy political rallies,” receiving only polite applause for much of his remarks.
Axios reported that there didn’t appear to be much of a “visible show of support” for the former president’s 2024 campaign among the New Hampshire Republicans attending. Unlike the large rallies from 2016 and 2020, the president’s speech was held in a small high school auditorium to an audience of about 400 people.
The only organized show of support for Trump was outside of the venue where about a dozen Trump supporters were standing in the parking lot outside, Axios reported.
Former New Hampshire GOP chair Wayne MacDonald told Axios that while Trump wasn’t “mortally wounded” by the lackluster midterms, he was “damaged” by it. MacDonald suggested that Trump’s constant refrain about the 2020 election being stolen is also damaging since the people who still believe it are “a dwindling minority.”
A recent University of New Hampshire Granite State poll found that in a multi-candidate field, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is in first place with 42 percent, while Trump placed second with 30 percent.
