Donald Trump still leads the polls in New Hampshire, tracking around 26 percent with six weeks remaining until the Feb. 9 primary. | Getty
Donald Trump is so confident about his chances of winning New Hampshire, he told voters there Monday night: “I demand the election be today.”
And then, after spending several minutes citing multiple polls showing him leading the Republican presidential race, he took aim at Chris Christie, who remains several points behind him in New Hampshire but is on more of an upswing there than any other candidates after devoting almost all of his energy to campaigning in the state.
“We love New Hampshire, but he shouldn’t be up here all the time,” Trump said. “He’s supposed to be running the state.”
Trump, who also lambasted the publisher of the state’s largest newspaper who endorsed Christie last month, blasted the New Jersey governor’s record, pointed to the state’s credit downgrades and alleged that Christie’s denial of involvement in the "Bridgegate" controversy is difficult to believe.
He also reminded New Hampshire of Christie’s infamous embrace of President Barack Obama in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which came in the closing weeks of the presidential campaign and was seen by some Republicans as a political betrayal of the GOP nominee, Mitt Romney. Christie, Trump suggested, was excited to ride on the president’s helicopter.
“It was unbelievable,” he said of Christie. “He was like a little boy.”
He spent even more time bashing Joe McQuaid, publisher of the New Hampshire Union Leader, offering supporters a bevy of details about McQuaid's alleged courtship of Trump, including his request that Trump tweet a statement of support for including Christie on the main stage at a debate when he was falling short of the entry criteria.
“He’s Christie’s lap dog,” Trump said.
Trump, marketing himself as a tough, savvy, successful businessman, mocked McQuaid for overseeing a “dying paper” that’s seeing its pages decrease as advertising revenue dries up.
“It’s going down the tubers,” Trump said. “If you cut it down any more, you won’t be able to find it.”
But his tirade over the lost endorsement, even after Trump agreed to participate in a candidate forum organized by the newspaper, betrayed the brash businessman’s hurt feelings. “You don’t go try and hurt somebody that’s been helping you,” he said.
Trump still leads the polls in New Hampshire, tracking around 26 percent with six weeks remaining until the Feb. 9 primary.
Minutes after taking the stage, he promised supporters that the state’s prized first-in-the-nation primary status is not in jeopardy — a rebuke to Jeb Bush and Christie, both of whom have hinted to New Hampshire crowds that a Trump win in the Feb. 9 primary could prompt changes to the primary calendar.
“New Hampshire will always maintain its place if I win,” Trump said. “There’s a big movement to put you at the back of the pack.”
But his unconventional campaign threatens to blow up the conventional wisdom of what it takes to win in the Granite State. In a place known for putting presidential candidates through the rigors of a months-long policy test, Trump is still offering a string of one-liners and policy positions that are at worst simplistic and at best opaque.
“That whole heroin thing, I tell you what, we gotta get that whole thing under control,” Trump said, breezily addressing the state’s heroin epidemic.
Interspersing his ideas with references to polls showing his continued dominance, Trump bounced from one policy-related promise to another.
“We’re going to build a wall,” he said, drawing cheers. “We’re going to have a real border.”
“Oh, ISIS … we’re going to knock the hell out of them,” he said moments later.
He dismissed all his rivals as “bloodsuckers” beholden to donors and again spent time mocking Jeb Bush, even though, as Trump pointed out, Bush is polling far behind him.
“I’ve spent essentially nothing, and Bush has spent $59 million, and he’s down near the bottom with 2 or 3 percent,” Trump said.
Trump also took a few shots at Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic front-runner, but steered clear after delving into personal attacks about her marriage, something he said just Sunday was fair game after her criticism of his “penchant for sexism” in response to his statement that she got “schlonged” in the 2008 Democratic primaries.
“That’s a common word in New York, and it means to be beaten badly,” he said, recognizing the uproar over his controversial verb choice. “I won’t give the press any more fun with it.”
Trump began and ended his 67-minutes on stage by imploring his supporters to actually turn out and vote.
“Unless I win, it doesn’t mean a damn thing to me,” he said.
But, again, his grasp of the specifics was loose at best.
“It’s very important on February 8th,” he said.
The crowd, in unison, responded unprompted: “The ninth!”
