Former President Donald Trump launched his history-making 2016 campaign with a grassroots-driven GOP primary victory in New Hampshire. But on Monday he announced his 2024 Granite State campaign will be overseen, not from Manchester, but Des Moines.
As in Iowa.
The Trump campaign revealed the makeup of its Iowa leadership team, among them Alex Latcham, a former Iowa GOP operative who worked in the Trump White House’s political office. “Latcham will oversee the campaign’s political operations in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada,” the campaign said in a statement.
Granite State GOP insiders were underwhelmed.
“They have an Iowan overseeing New Hampshire,” one Republican insider quipped. “Just like Ray Buckley!”
It’s a reference to Buckley’s now-infamous decision to hire Troy Price, who was forced to resign as chair of the Iowa Democratic Party after overseeing their disastrous 2020 caucuses, as the New Hampshire party’s executive director.
“I’m not sure he’s ever been to New Hampshire,” added another Granite State GOP campaign veteran. “Shows how disorganized the Trump team is.”
The announcement of Iowa management for Trump’s New Hampshire campaign adds to growing questions about the strength of the former president’s organization. After a poorly-received campaign kick-off at Mar-a-Lago in December, Trump has largely stayed off the campaign trail — with the notable exception of an appearance at the NHGOP state committee meeting in January.
Iowa Republicans have been grumbling about his n0-show status in the Hawkeye State.
“I found that quite interesting,” Gloria Mazza, chairwoman of the Polk County GOP, said of Trump’s New Hampshire and South Carolina stops. “Because Iowa is first in the nation, doesn’t everybody come here first?”
On Monday, Nikki Haley held several well-attended appearances in Iowa, following a series of packed-house events in New Hampshire last week.
An NHJournal poll released the day of Trump’s Granite State visit found local Republicans, once extremely loyal to the former president, evenly split on the question of whether they wanted to nominate Trump or a different candidate. And while Trump was the most popular candidate on a list of likely 2024 competitors, he only had the support of 37 percent of likely GOP primary voters. (Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was at 26 percent and Gov. Chris Sununu at 13 percent.)
It appears the Trump team currently has just one person on the ground in New Hampshire, former GOP state party chairman Steve Stepanek.
“There are more people working for the ‘Ready for Ron’ campaign in New Hampshire than Trump’s,” one former Trump supporter told NHJournal. The “Ready for Ron” organization has gathered more than 200,000 signatures on its petition urging the Florida governor to get in the race.
And the Trump campaign could also be encountering a problem plaguing political campaigns at every level: a lack of young people interested in signing up.
According to Caroline Vakil, who reports for The Hill, both political parties are struggling to find the young volunteers and entry-level workers who once commonly flocked to high-profile political campaigns.
“Republicans and Democrats that I have talked to have pointed to different reasons why they think this is,” Vakil said in a radio interview. “One of the reasons I’ve heard is that there’s just this generational change in the minds of how young people are thinking about these jobs.”
While the excitement of being part of history was once enough to lure in campaign staffers, “Campaigns are being forced to pay more money to offer better salaries for some of these young people,” Vakil said.
But whether it’s based in Salem, N.H. or Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Trump campaign is facing a very different environment among GOP primary voters, as evident by the warm welcome they gave Haley.
Asked by an Iowa Republican Monday why Trump supporters from 2016 should caucus for her in 2o24, Haley immediately replied, “Because I don’t think you have to be 80 years old to be in D.C.”
The crowd reportedly loved it.
