Two prominent Trump supporters in New Hampshire have decided not to push for a new rule for the state’s Republican Party, which would have forced GOP officers to endorse an incumbent president in a primary.
State Rep. Fred Doucette of Salem and pro-Trump activist Bruce Breton told local news outlet WMUR that they had dropped their proposal to change the state party’s bylaws for now.
The two Trump supporters complained there was a “lack of public support for the incumbent President of the United States.”
“Wholesale changes in the NHGOP leadership must and will be made in the coming weeks. With this in mind, we will not pursue any bylaw changes at this annual convention,” they said in a statement.
“That being said, it is common sense to tens of thousands of Trump supporters in New Hampshire that the neutrality clause in the NHGOP bylaws be addressed to reaffirm the GOP support of the leader of the Republican Party. “
The New Hampshire Republican Party’s current bylaws forbid party officers from taking sides in any party primary.
Speculation has swirled that Trump will face a Republican primary challenger in 2020.
New Hampshire has one of the most-watched presidential primaries, which “traditionally [has] been not just an important indicator of how candidates are faring, but a way of winnowing the field and generating or killing funding,” explained politics professor Gillian Peele. “Candidates who perform poorly generally find their access to money suddenly dries up.”
