Former President Donald Trump is set to hold his first public campaign event since announcing his 2024 White House bid in South Carolina.
Trump’s appearance at Columbia this month will be smaller and more “intimate” than the large arena rallies that have become his trademark, advisers told Politico, which first reported Trump’s plans.
Since 2024 announcement in November, bashed by some conservatives as “low energy,” Trump has maintained a low profile — a stark contrast to his pre-presidential position. For the 2016 campaign, Trump held his first rally in Iowa just 10 hours after announcing in New York that he was running.
Trump team members noted that South Carolina, one of the first states on the 2024 primary calendar, is key to Trump’s path to the Republican nomination.
“The campaign has been building its infrastructure and expanding its team over the past few months – doing the work it needs to do that it may not be publicly facing,” spokesman Steven Cheung said. The Wall Street Journal.
Trump easily won the South Carolina primary in 2016. Two of the state’s top Republicans, former Gov. Nikki Haley and One. Team Scottas a potential rival for the GOP nomination in 2024.
Trump has been hammered by controversy since his campaign announcement. In November, he hosted a dinner at Mar-a-Lago resort with white supremacy Nick Fuentes and the antisemitic rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, which attracted widespread criticism.
He is also involved in legal matters, including a Justice Department investigation classification document stored improperly in his property and his role in trying to defeat the defeat of the 2020 election. The Trump Organization is found guilty of tax fraud in December and sentenced to pay the maximum fine there. In addition, Trump and his company face lawsuits, including one filed by a woman who claims Trump raped her in a New York department store in the 1990s.
After the poor performance by the Republicans in the 2022 midterms, especially the failure of the candidate approved by Trump, the viability of the former president in 2024 is in question. Weekly failure is over Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s election as House speakerand Trump’s fight for right-wing pressure to make him, more suggest the influence of waning.
