Nashua, New Hampshire
Spirits were high at the Sheraton in Nashua as Donald Trump claimed victory in the New Hampshire Republican primary for the third consecutive time. Local Trump fans and Republicans poured into the hotel ballroom — a number of whom made the very short trip up from Massachusetts. “That’d be huge, if Trump signed my Zyn,” said one young New Englander to another as they headed back into the melée.
Many of the stars of the MAGA Cinematic Universe put in an appearance: Cockburn spotted Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake, dressed in white like the Miss Havisham of VP picks; Florida congressman Byron Donalds embracing a supporter as Fox made their call; Eric Trump and his wife Lara grabbing a bite in the adjoining restaurant — with Waltine Nauta, the Donald’s co-defendant in the federal classified documents case. Gavin Wax and Raheem Kassam had made the trip north from New York and DC, respectively, and George Santos was encircled in the bar outside by fans — sorry, reporters. Corey Lewandowski, the MAGA Pete Davidson, found it equally easy to hold court right in front of the media rider — and Rudy Giuliani was mobbed in the hallway.
Marjorie Taylor Greene got up close for a Right Side Broadcasting Network hit with her beau, Brian Glenn. “Really? That’s who she’s fucking?” said an incredulous female producer close by. Outside a closed-off area labeled CAMPAIGN STAFF ONLY, Laura Loomer waited, scrolling her phone as if looking for a way in. Alas, she was not admitted, instead joining the throng of Trump supporters in the main room and posing for a picture with Santos.
Trump won the Granite State — but it was a closer affair than perhaps he’d have hoped. At the time of writing, his lead over Nikki Haley was twelve points. “New Hampshire folk are very open minded and kind of able to look at things politically and not personally,” a New England political insider told Cockburn. So why didn’t more of the undeclareds go for Haley? “There’s something about her that people aren’t buying. The voters don’t trust her — and I think a lot of people are paranoid about getting burned.”
Cockburn caught up with Merrimack County commissioner David Lovlien Jr., a Trump fan. “I’m so excited because this is the beginning of the end,” he said. “We are taking our country back.”
He said of Nikki Haley, who was speaking on TV at the time, “That’s a scary woman.” Why didn’t people in his state plump for her? “They’re suspicious of when you come in with a face, like ‘ahhhhh!’, like ‘hi, I’m a DC politician!’ New Hampshire voters at a diner who just had a cigarette and a black coffee go, ‘who is this character?’ So we can see right through her facade.”
Cockburn asked Lovlien if anything could stop Trump from sealing the nomination, besides his many trials.
“Or if they killed him,” he replied. “Let’s be honest, I know we don’t like talking about that. I hate to even say it, but I love him and this is very volatile times… and when I say ‘they,’ I don’t know who that is… and I hope that never happens.”
The crowd — and the media — waited for Trump as the PA blasted out his playlist of rally tracks, which includes songs from The Phantom of the Opera and, of course, the Village People’s “Macho Man” and “YMCA.” “You know, they say this is all him,” a photographer says to Cockburn.
Eventually, to “God Bless the USA,” Trump took the stage, accompanied by a huge entourage including former candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott; Eric and Lara Trump; campaign spokesman Steven Cheung; new campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt, social media director Dan Scavino and advisors Susie Wiles, Chris LaCivita, Jason Miller and Brian Jack, among others.
Trump spoke for around twenty minutes, mostly criticizing his remaining primary opponent Nikki Haley, who had spoken up in Concord just before. “She was talking about most winnability, ‘who’s going to win,’” he said. “And I had one put up. I don’t know if you see them, but I had one put up. We’ve won almost every single poll in the last three months against Crooked Joe Biden… Let’s not have somebody take a victory when she had a very bad night.”
He also took a pop at New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu, who had endorsed her: “He’s gotta be on something, I’ve never seen that kind of energy.”
“Just a little note to Nikki,” Trump said later. “She’s not going to win… but if she did, she would be under investigation by those people in fifteen minutes. And I could tell you five reasons why already. Not big reasons, but it is stuff that she doesn’t want to talk about. But she will be under investigation within minutes.”
“I find in life, you can’t let people get away with bullshit, OK?” Trump said of his opponent’s speech. “And when I watched her in a fancy dress, that probably wasn’t so fancy, come up, I said, ‘what’s she doing?’”
Cockburn headed back north to Manchester and headed for a nightcap at the Goat, where Fox News was taping a segment. At the bar, he found himself next to a familiar face: the youthful Nikki Haley staffer who had asked him to leave her meet-and-greet at an Amherst diner last week. A comrade of Cockburn was bold enough to point this out to the young chap, who naturally played dumb and claimed it must be a case of mistaken identity, that he was not the same staffer. He then left. Color Cockburn shocked when he bumps into a similar-looking fellow in South Carolina in the weeks ahead…
