ROCHESTER, N.H. — Burning questions about who could win Tuesday’s presidential primary weren’t the top priority here Saturday evening. Instead, it was burning marshmallows.
Around 50 residents of Rochester braved the 17-degree weather common for the winter festival in this city, huddling around a few fires, making s’mores and drinking hot chocolate while children skated on a makeshift ice rink. But 24 hours later, politics is taking over Rochester, with former President Donald Trump holding one of his last major events before the New Hampshire primary at the city’s opera house Sunday.
The small city of roughly 33,000 in southeastern New Hampshire is one of a handful of cities and towns that has mirrored the GOP statewide primary results going back to 1952.
And “the campaigns know that Rochester is a bellwether,” said Mayor Paul Callaghan, a Republican.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has also campaigned in Rochester in the final days of the race. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stopped here on his first swing through the state last year. And in many ways, the city illustrates how the GOP has changed in the last decade: Voters here twice supported former President Barack Obama before they flipped to support Trump in the 2016 and 2020 general elections.
“It’s a good mix of the makeup of the modern New Hampshire Republican Party,” said Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist who worked for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign and for Republican former Sen. John Sununu.
“You’ve got very conservative activists and some longtime party stalwarts,” Williams said. “So that attracts quite a bit of attention in primaries.”
Callaghan, the mayor, expects a contested primary race in Rochester this year.
“You have the real conservative activists that are definitely more on President Trump’s side. They’re active and vocal,” Callaghan said in a recent phone interview. “But a lot of folks like to keep their political thoughts to themselves. They’ll vote.”
Trump country?
In the GOP primary back in 2016, Trump won this city by 20 percentage points, close to his 23-point statewide margin of victory. He could be in for a big win again in Rochester and across the state if his supporters turn out at the polls Tuesday.
Rochester is the kind of area where Republicans have found success in the Trump years as the party realigned its base around blue-collar voters who are culturally conservative.
“It’s going to be Trump country for sure,” said Fergus Cullen, a former New Hampshire GOP chairman who is a City Council member in neighboring Dover and a self-described “Never Trumper.”
Trump supporters packed into the ornate opera house in Rochester, which is attached to City Hall, on Sunday evening. And Rochester’s own Republican Party was represented. Carlton Cooper, the Rochester GOP chairman, addressed the crowd at the start of the program.
Donning a red hat with bold white letters spelling “MAGA,” Cooper implored the crowd to back Trump and took aim at Haley, saying of her and New Hampshire GOP Gov. Chris Sununu, “These two don’t represent America for us. Plain and simple.”
“This Tuesday, let’s show the world that we the people of New Hampshire are tired of Joe Biden and the Democrats’ actions. That we want Donald J. Trump back in the White House to make us great again!” Cooper ended his speech, and the crowd erupted in cheers of “Trump! Trump! Trump!”
Robert Shaw III, a Republican who attended Saturday’s winter festival at the common, cited gas prices and taxes as key reasons he supports Trump and saying: “I love Donald Trump.”
Shaw’s wife, Amy, is an undeclared voter planning to support Haley. But if Trump is the party’s nominee, she’d support him.
“Is he a jerk? Yes….
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