Top Trump volunteer out after email saying NH 'no longer a battleground state': report

A top volunteer for Donald Trump's campaign in Massachusetts lost his position after he emailed fellow volunteers and said neighboring New Hampshire was "no longer a battleground state" and encouraged supporters to instead direct their efforts on winning Pennsylvania.

Tom Mountain wrote in the email, obtained by The Boston Globe, that Trump was “sure to lose by an even higher margin” this year in New Hampshire than he did in 2016 and 2020. Mountain cited “campaign data/research," according to the Globe.

Republicans in the region scrambled to push back against Mountain's comments and emphasize his comments were the opinion of a volunteer and not the party's official strategy.

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Brian Hughes, senior advisor to the Trump campaign, told the Globe that Mountain that he was not a “leading volunteer” and “due to this ridiculous misrepresentation of our ongoing operation in New Hampshire, he will no longer have any involvement going forward.”

He added that the Trump campaign still has a presence on the ground in the state with staffers and offices.

Meanwhile, Steve Stepanek, leader of the Trump campaign in the state, said Mountain "obviously has no idea what is going on in NH because he is from Massachusetts."

Mountain notably resigned in 2021 as vice chairman of the Massachusetts GOP over a "scurrilous and demeaning" blog post. At the time, Mountain did not identify the blog post in question, but the Boston Globe noted a story posted by Turtleboy Sports titled, "Vice Chairman Of Mass GOP Leaves Tons Of Creepy Comments For Women On Facebook Including Underage Girls, Claims He Was Hacked."

The story alleged that Mountain had left "creepy comments" about an intern for Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL), some of which were left when she was 14 and 15 years old.