By Nathan Layne
MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) – Donald Trump will use his first campaign event since President Joe Biden officially entered the 2024 election race to portray their differences in stark and apocalyptic terms, arguing a Biden re-election would lead to “conflict” and “anarchy.”
According to excerpts of his planned remarks on Thursday, Trump will try to reframe the choice between the two men. Biden, a Democrat, launched his re-election campaign two days ago with a video promising to protect personal freedoms from “extremists” linked to the former Republican president.
“The choice in this election is now between strength or weakness, between success or failure, between safety or anarchy, between peace or conflict, and prosperity or catastrophe,” Trump was set to tell a crowd of supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire.
“With your vote on November 5th, 2024, we are going to crush Joe Biden at the ballot box, and we are going to settle our unfinished business.”
Trump’s remarks assume that both he and Biden will win their party’s nominations. Trump appeared to be consolidating his support in the race for the Republican nomination and travels to New Hampshire in hope of capturing the early nominating state.
The former president had a sizeable national lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, 49% to 23%, among self-identified Republicans, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted April 21-24.
Benefiting from a large field of candidates and tapping into the angst of working-class voters, Trump handily won New Hampshire’s primary in 2016 in a prelude to victories across the Northeast and ultimately the Republican nomination.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne; editing by Ross Colvin and Cynthia Osterman)
