With Election Day 2022 over, the starting gun has fired in the 2024 White House race.
And one of the biggest and expected moves in the next presidential cycle will likely happen almost immediately.
Former President Donald Trump says he’ll make a “special announcement” on Tuesday night at an event at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump, who’s been repeatedly flirting with making another presidential run to try and return to the White House, is expected to make 2024 news.
But New Hampshire GOP chair Steve Stepanek reiterates that regardless of what Trump announces, the state party will remain neutral in the upcoming GOP presidential nomination race.
Pointing to the state party’s tradition and bylaws, Stepanek told the Monitor that “all the officers of the NHGOP will remain neutral up until 8 p.m. on the evening of the first-in-the-nation primary.”
Trump held his first house party in New Hampshire at Stepanek’s home in early 2015, during his first run for the White House. And Stepanek served as a co-chair of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign in New Hampshire. But since taking over as party chair in early 2019, the conservative activist has upheld his pledge to stay neutral in GOP presidential nomination races.
Nearly two years after his re-election defeat, Trump remains hands-down the most popular and influential politician in the Republican Party and the most ferocious fundraiser who holds sway over grassroots donors. And poll after poll indicates that Trump would start out as the overwhelming front-runner for the GOP nomination.
However, Trump’s standing in the GOP and repeated 2024 teasing hasn’t kept other potential Republican White House hopefuls from making moves toward launching presidential campaigns.
Former Vice President Mike Pence; former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; former South Carolina governor and former ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley; Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas; and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan are among the possible White House hopefuls who have made multiple trips to New Hampshire, Iowa and the other early-voting primary and caucus states over the past year and a half.
And Trump’s being criticized by many in the Republican Party who argue that the former president’s backing of far-right MAGA loyalists in GOP primaries hurt the party in this week’s general election, downsizing a potential red wave into more of a trickle.
Asked by this reporter after he voted on Tuesday morning whether it’s a good idea for Trump or any other potential 2024 contender to announce so soon after the midterm, and if Trump would clear the GOP presidential nomination race, Republican Gov. Chris Sununu said “I don’t think anyone really cares and he does not clear the field. No.”
Sununu, who hasn’t entirely ruled out a presidential run of his own, added that “anyone who wants to run is still going to run…. Anyone who thinks it’s a smart idea to announce a…potential presidential bid after the election but before Christmas, it’s just the worst time you could possibly do it. My sense is the former president needs better advisers if that’s what his strategy is going to be.”
Besides a potential Trump announcement, the week after the midterm elections will also see the first real Republican 2024 cattle calls.
Up first is the Republican Governors Association’s annual winter meeting, which is being held this year near Orlando, Florida. Among those attending who have said they’re mulling a White House bid or who are viewed by political prognosticators as potential contenders are Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, Larry Hogan of Maryland, and Kristi Noem of South Dakota, as well as Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, and Sununu.
At the end of the week, 11 GOP politicians whom pundits view as potential or likely contenders for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, will attend the Republican Jewish Coalition’s (RJC) annual leadership meeting in Las Vegas.
The 12 are Pence, Pompeo, Haley, Cruz, Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, Tim Scott of South Carolina, and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, DeSantis, Hogan, Sununu, and former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.
New Hampshire will see plenty of traffic by the potential and actual GOP presidential candidates as the cycle gets underway. Pence, Pompeo, Haley, Hogan, Christie, Cruz, and Rick and Tim Scott are among the potential contenders who’ve already made stops in New Hampshire during the pre-season the past year and a half.
New Hampshire Secretary of State Dave Scanlan predicted a record turnout in the 2022 elections.
And the final numbers topped his pre-election forecast.
According to figures from the Secretary of State’s office, 626,823 ballots were cast in New Hampshire in the 2022 election, beating Scanlan’s forecast of 591,000. And the vote total smashed the previous record for a midterm election, when 582,000 Granite Staters cast ballots in the 2018 midterms.
“New Hampshire has a great history of running smooth elections, and this one was right up there at the top,” Scanlan touted.
State Sen. Donna Soucy of Manchester on Friday was unanimously selected by state Senate Democrats to once again serve as Democratic Leader in the chamber.
Soucy, who was re-elected on Tuesday to a sixth two-year term in the state Senate, has served as Democratic leader since 2018.
Republicans retained their 14-10 majority in the state Senate in Tuesday’s elections.
“I look forward to what we can achieve together on behalf of the people of New Hampshire,” Soucy said in a statement. “With such a closely-divided legislature, it is more important than ever that we come together to address the challenges facing our state. We must address the rising costs our families are struggling with and protect our fundamental freedoms, including reproductive rights and access to safe and legal abortion.”