Trump Announces, NH Journal Readers React!

By NewsNHJ, NH Journal

New Hampshire Journal invited readers to react to former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign launch Tuesday night by responding to a short survey and offering their own thoughts on his speech. NHJournal also asked for their opinion on his decision to run.

While this isn’t a poll and the sample is far from random, more than 150 NHJournal readers responded Tuesday night, offering a glimpse into what likely GOP primary voters think of Trump’s return. Based on this reaction, Granite State Republicans are not impressed.

The headlines:

• About half of the respondents said Trump’s speech made them less likely to back his 2024 bid.
• Only 15 percent said they were “Never Trumpers,” while more than half described themselves as “like Trump’s policies, not his personality.”
• About a quarter said they were still supportive of Trump’s 2024 run after the speech.
• Asked to pick among the other possible GOP candidates, more than half chose Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was far and away the top choice. In second place: Gov. Chris Sununu at around 14 percent.

More than 50 of the respondents also added comments about Trump and 2024, and they were overwhelmingly negative.

“Loved Trump policies. But he needs to step aside now for the good of the party,” reflected the message of many of the comments

“It’s clear a population segment has hardened against DJT,” another reader said. “There is nothing he can do to change this. I love everything DJT stands for, everything he said he would do and did, and everything he could do if elected. Problem is … he cannot win again.”

Other commenters were more openly — even brutally — negative about Trump.

“Trump sucks. I don’t like his stupid hats, and his constant conspiracy theories make me embarrassed to call myself a GOP. I’m also tired of defending the crazy things he says – and as it turns out, I don’t think the elections were stolen, and I do think the Proud Boys are racists. Can’t we just move on from this guy?”

Another simply wrote: “Trump needs to go away!”

While most of the comments were either negative or ambivalent (“Let’s see what he does to help win the runoff in Georgia”), there were some hardcore Trump defenders as well.

“President Trump is the most promising leader for this nation if we want to achieve the greatness that was delivered during his term. He will be better even than those 4 years because he knows where the roadblocks were and will avoid them going forward,” one reader said.

And of course someone added, “Make America Great Again!”

The survey question responses are below:

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.