MANCHESTER, N.H. – Three days before a New Hampshire primary in which former President Donald Trump hopes to defeat former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, he addressed a packed rally of his supporters alongside South Carolina’s top Republican elected officials.
Trump announced the group of conservative Palmetto State politicians – Haley’s successor Gov. Henry McMaster; Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette; State House Speaker Murrell Smith; Treasurer Curtis Loftis; Attorney General Alan Wilson; and U.S. Reps. William Timmons, Joe Wilson, and Russell Fry – as evidence of Haley’s political weakness. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a former presidential candidate, endorsed Trump on Friday, but was not present at Saturday night’s event.
“The Radical Left Democrats are supporting Nikki Haley for one reason because they know she’s very easy to beat. She’s gonna be very easy to beat. She’s them,” Trump declared before introducing the elected officials, several of whom spoke on his behalf. “That’s why I’m so proud to be joined today by an incredible group of leaders from Nikki’s home state of South Carolina where we’ll be in about three weeks.”
Trump’s effort to display dominance over Haley served a dual purpose. Since the eve of the Iowa caucuses, Trump has hammered Haley as a liberal infiltrator because of her reliance on the support of anti-Trump moderate Republicans and independents. To that end, he has made the misleading claim that Democrats are allowed to vote in New Hampshire’s Republican primary. In fact, while independents are free to vote in the state’s GOP primary without any advance preparation, registered Democrats who want to participate must have switched their registration to the Republican Party in early October.
“They want to turn liberal voters into Republicans for about two minutes while they vote and then go back to being liberal voters in the Democrat party,” he said on Saturday night. “It’s terrible.”
After repeatedly suggesting changing party affiliation was as simple as changing a band-aid, he later made clear, in passing, that he understands that any Democrats who want to vote in the Republican primary needed to have done so by Oct. 6.
Trump did not mention that South Carolina, where polling shows him with a large lead in that state’s Feb. 24 contest, does not have partisan registration of any kind. That means that people who vote consistently for Democrats are free to participate without any additional requirements.
“Don’t listen to polls. Get out and vote. We need a big, big win against these terrible people.”
– Former President Donald Trump
Of course, Trump’s show of force on Saturday night also set the stage for a strategy he is likely to employ should he either lose, or win only narrowly, in New Hampshire: Writing off the state as a liberal aberration, and encouraging his supporters to avenge him in the deeply conservative Palmetto State. Thanks to its population of Trump-skeptical moderate and libertarian voters, Trump’s polling lead over Haley in New Hampshire, while substantial, is far narrower than it is in South Carolina.
“Don’t listen to polls,” he told the Manchester crowd, warning them against seeing his lead over Haley as a sure thing. “Get out and vote. We need a big, big win against these terrible people.”
Judging by the raucous crowd of thousands assembled to see Trump in Southern New Hampshire University’s arena on Saturday night, his base of supporters in the state does not lack for enthusiasm. Event staff closed the doors to the venue an hour before Trump got on stage, saying that the fire marshal said the arena was at legal capacity. Inside the arena though, there were many empty seats.
Even as he savaged Haley with biting attacks, Trump enjoyed a jovial rapport with the crowd.
“Nikki Haley, I know her well,” he began, prompting a chorus of boos and apparently a lone cry of “bird brain” from one attendee.
“The guy’s screaming ‘bird brain.’ Only in New Hampshire does that happen!” Trump responded.
Haley was the core focus of Trump’s speech, against whom he continued to marshal a combination of attacks from the right – that she is a “globalist” who will cave to China, bankroll Ukraine, and fail to curb illegal immigration – and from the left, by hitting her for her plans to raise Social Security’s retirement age.
Trump went on an extended riff about the latter point toward the end of his speech, arguing that her position was both wrongheaded and politically stupid.
“Haley said she wants to raise the Social Security retirement age to match life expectancy, which means that she wants it to go up to about 77. Is everybody happy with that?” he asked, eliciting a loud “no” from the audience. “It’s not going to happen with us.”
Haley has actually said that she would raise the age for younger workers to account for life expectancy, not to match average life expectancy exactly.
Trump went on to outline how Haley’s stance would cost her the election, just as former Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare undermined Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential bid when Ryan was his vice presidential candidate.
“Paul Ryan’s 2011 plan to destroy Medicare – the same plan that led to Democrat ads, the most vicious ads showing Republicans wheeling granny off the cliff. Do you remember that? That was not good politics,” Trump recalled. “They lost that election.”
JOSEPH PREZIOSO/Getty Images
Trump instead implied that he could grow the economy enough by drilling for more oil – “liquid gold under our feet” – that benefit cuts would not be necessary to close Social Security’s funding gap. (There are no credible actuarial analyses that say the program’s funding gap can be addressed solely through economic growth, though it is possible to shore up its finances with revenue increases alone.)
He also blasted Haley for supposedly supporting a 23% national sales tax, based on a 2012 social media post in which she said she supported “the Fair Tax” proposal. (A select group of fiscally conservative, congressional Republicans have, for years, introduced a bill called the FairTax Act that would replace federal income, payroll, and estate taxes with a single 23% sales tax.)
“Think about that. Think. This is death – this is death for a candidate,” he said. “The world doesn’t know that. I thought I’d let you know before the election.”
Trump treated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis mostly as an afterthought though he noted that DeSantis had also voted to raise the Social Security retirement age, and backed the 23% sales tax as a member of Congress.
“I haven’t even mentioned the name of Ron DeSanctimonious yet because I think he’s gone,” Trump said toward the beginning of his speech.
Someone in the crowd yelled out that DeSantis wears high heels. The claim is based on internet speculation that DeSantis uses lifts in his cowboy boots to make himself look taller.
“Our economy didn’t suck when he was our president and I was finally doing the best financially in my life.”
– Leslie Szabunka, food service worker
“He does not wear high heels, OK! He does not wear high heels!” Trump joked with faux coyness. “All right, maybe.”
“Guy screams out, ‘He’s got a new pair of high heels,’” Trump added. “You can’t do that. It’s not polite. Don’t do that. I’ll have to admonish you.”
Trump supporters told HuffPost that they felt that the economy was better under Trump.
“Our economy didn’t suck when he was our president and I was finally doing the best financially in my life,” said Leslie Szabunka, a food service worker at a local college who was sporting a red “Trump” stocking hat.
Mahmoud Attia, manager of a Nashua pizza place, and his wife, Wesam Al-Sayed, drove up to hear Trump speak with their three boys. After waiting in line in the freezing cold for an extended time, they were not able to get in before the arena reached capacity.
Attia previously voted for Democrats, but regretted his vote for President Joe Biden and plans to rectify that with a vote for Trump this year.
Trump has a “strong personality. He knows what he’s doing,” said Attia, who immigrated from Egypt in the late 1990s. “He’s not a mess like this guy, like crooked Joe Biden.”
Asked what issues he had with Biden, Attia replied, “Economy sucks – everything is bad.”