Former President Donald Trump’s criminal conviction on 34 felony counts in his historic criminal trial drew swift reaction from New Hampshire’s top politicians vying for the corner office.
“Today’s show trial starkly reveals the extent to which Joe Biden has corrupted our justice system, creating a blatant two-tiered standard,” 2024 Republican gubernatorial candidate Chuck Morse quickly posted on social media Thursday.
Morse, the former New Hampshire Senate president, would cherish an endorsem*nt from the former president in his race against former U.S. Sen Kelly Ayotte for the GOP nomination.
During his time in Concord, Morse never appeared particularly close to Trump or his MAGA movement, but now he’s trumpeting support. Morse’s social media post included a photo of him standing with Trump.
“This weaponization of justice to target a political opponent is an affront to American values and will only embolden President Trump’s supporters, rallying millions of voters to his side,” Morse wrote.
Ayotte, the state’s former top prosecutor, has a well-documented history of strained relations with Trump.
She didn’t react online or in an email statement to the verdict in the case, which was the first time in the nation’s history that a former or current president faced a criminaltrial.
In a statement to the conservative-leaning NH Journal, Ayotte criticized the verdict and stood by the former president.
Article continues after...
Your Daily Puzzles
“Today’s verdict is disappointing, and I don’t believe our justice system should be politicized. Our country is on the wrong track with Joe Biden in the White House, and that’s why I’m supporting Donald Trump,” Ayotte, the front-runner in the GOP gubernatorial nomination race, said.
The top two Democrats in the race for the Corner Office took aim at Ayotte.
“If it wasn’t clear before, it’s absolutely clear now: Kelly Ayotte is too extreme for New Hampshire. Her unwavering commitment to a far-right extremist who has just been convicted on 34 felony counts proves it,” former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig wrote in a fundraising email following the Trump trial verdict.
Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington, Craig’s rival for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, similarly blasted Ayotte.
“Kelly Ayotte calls herself the law-and-order candidate, but she’s guilty of endorsing Donald Trump — now a convicted felon — for president,” Warmington said. “We need someone who has the backbone to stand up to the likes of Trump and Ayotte. I’ll be that governor for the people of New Hampshire.”
Staying quiet as of now is retiring four-term Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who wasa longtime vocal GOP critic of the former president anda leading supporter of top Trump rival Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primaries. Sununu has said he’ll vote for Trump in November.
The big question going forward is whether Trump’s guilty verdicts will impact the trajectory of the presidential race as well as some down-ballot contests.
In his White House rematch with President Joe Biden, Trump currently holds a slight edge both in national polling and in public opinion surveys in most of the crucial battleground states that will likely decide the election.
In swing state New Hampshire, which Biden captured by seven points four years ago, the latest surveys indicate the president holds the edge over his Republican predecessor.
Two-thirds of registered voters nationwide questioned in a NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National Poll released on Thursday — just hours before the blockbuster verdict — said a conviction in the trial would make no difference to their vote in the presidential election.
Seventeen percent said a conviction of Trump would make them less likely to vote for him and 15% said they’d be more inclined to support the former president at the ballot box.
“If Donald Trump is a convicted felon going into the November election, that has to mean something to the small number of undecided voters in the six battleground states that will decide the election,” said seasoned Democratic strategist and New Hampshire native Chris Moyer.
“A very little development in this race could push voters one way or another. Nobody wants to be a convicted felon when you’re putting your name on the ballot,” said Moyer, a veteran of a handful of Democratic presidential campaigns and communications director on former state Sen. Molly Kelly’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign.
Longtime Republican consultant Colin Reed acknowledged that it’s “never a good thing to be convicted, in life or politics, of a crime.” “But the old rules and the old conventional way of thinking have never really applied to Donald Trump throughout his life as a political figure,” said Reed, a veteran of multiple GOP presidential campaigns.
“It remains to be seen if this is a political anvil or if it’s just another chapter in a long saga of ups and downs for a guy who survived seemingly insurmountable political odds before,” said Reed, who steered former Sen. Scott Brown’s 2014 U.S. Senate campaign in New Hampshire.
