The news of the latest criminal indictment of former president Donald Trump is rippling through the political world — including on the presidential primary trail in New Hampshire.
NHPR’s senior political reporter Josh Rogers spoke with All Things Considered host Julia Furukawa after attending a state Republican fundraiser on Tuesday, where GOP leaders and presidential candidates made their pitch to voters.
Transcript
Josh, tell us more about the scene. Who was there?
Well, the scene was the Wentworth by the Sea golf course. It was a rainy day for golf. It was a fundraiser and a luncheon. So, the crowd was people who were comfortable spending money to play golf, kind of corporate level activists and people who are real steadfast members of the party. And there were also, of course, presidential candidates there: Vivek Ramaswamy, Larry Elder. Perry Johnson was supposed to be there, but he pulled out at the last minute and was represented by a surrogate. There were also GOP candidates for governor, including Kelly Ayotte and Chuck Morse. And Gov. Sununu spoke. So, it was a place where politics, presidential and otherwise, was very much on the agenda and in a way, a very traditional kind of setting and agenda for a summer afternoon in a year running up to a presidential primary. You know, the one difference is one you mentioned: that the front runner for president in the GOP, Donald Trump, has been indicted yet again.
Was Trump's latest indictment a big topic of conversation there?
Well, it certainly was in the air, but it wasn't really a big conversation topic with most people I spoke to. Those that talked about it with me tended to downplay it, dismiss its significance, or chalked it up to politics. More than one chose to pivot the discussion to Hunter Biden and made, you know, kind of Donald Trump-like arguments about politicized prosecutions. It mainly came up between voters and reporters, and certainly that was the case among candidates, too. And for this tier of candidates, things like the Trump indictment may hang over the race, but their main order of business is making sure they qualify for the first Republican debate. And for the voters they're trying to court, at least a good percentage of them don't take this indictment too seriously.
So, it's still pretty early on. When you're talking to voters at this stage of the New Hampshire primary and asking them about what's on their minds, are they talking about traditional issues or is Trump dominating the conversation?
Well, I mean, he looms large. He is the frontrunner with a big lead in every poll, state and national. But lots of voters will tell you they're trying to figure out who they might like to vote for, and they recognize they won't be voting for several more months. In general, plenty will express some degree of comfort with Donald Trump. There are plenty who will also tell you they wish he would have exited the scene, but few are really coming right out and saying they see a reason right now to reject him as unfit. You know, at least in discussions with me. I mean, Gov. Sununu was making that case to reporters outside the event reiterating his argument that the GOP needs a different nominee, that Donald Trump can't win. But when he was at the podium, he was talking about Republicans working together as a team and chose not to express his sentiments when it came to the former president, which I do think is telling, and in this circumstance shows that Gov. Sununu can read a room full of Republican activists.
