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Trump’s closing argument to New Hampshire voters pushes misinformation suggesting Democrats would “infiltrate” GOP primary
Manchester, New Hampshire — Former President Donald Trump’s closing message to New Hampshire voters contains falsehoods about the upcoming primary election, including a baseless claim that Democrats are planning to “infiltrate” the primary to support former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
“Nikki Haley is counting on Democrats and liberals to infiltrate your Republican primary,” Trump said to a small ballroom filled with supporters in Portsmouth Wednesday evening, before blaming New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu for the state’s primary system, which allows undeclared voters — which make up 40% of the state’s registered voters — to vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary on Jan. 23.
Trump repeated the same unfounded claims to a crowd of over 1,000 in Atkinson, New Hampshire, Tuesday night, and inaccurately stated that Democrats want to “cancel out” votes for him.
By law, undeclared residents may vote in New Hampshire’s GOP primary, along with Republican voters. Registered voters may only vote in one party’s primary, and the deadline to switch party registration expired in early October.
Of the state’s more than 873,000 registered voters, just 3,542 voters changed their registration from Democrat to undeclared before the state’s Oct. 6 deadline, and just 408 Democrats changed their registration to Republican.
The electorate in New Hampshire is more moderate than in Iowa, where Trump cruised to a decisive victory in this week’s caucuses, giving Haley a lane to challenge Trump in the Granite State if she can court enough moderate or independent support.
“I think Trump is one hundred percent correct to have a concern with left-leaning people voting in the Republican primary, but I think Donald Trump will be winning New Hampshire by a significant amount,” one Republican New Hampshire political strategist told CBS News. “And I don’t think enough people will that are left-leaning will overcome the amount of supporters you have in the state of New Hampshire.”
Trump’s rhetoric in New Hampshire is the latest example of his embrace of falsehoods and mis- and disinformation surrounding voting in the U.S., as he continues to claim that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him.
“President Trump is absolutely correct when he says Nikki Haley is relying on liberals and Democrats to infiltrate because that’s who she appeals to,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told CBS News.
The former president has also promised Granite Staters he’ll help the state that he once called a “drug-infested den” by lowering energy costs, taking care of both New Hampshire’s fishing and large veteran communities.
“You inherit the legacy of red-blooded New Hampshire patriots and you really are incredible patriots who lived by that immortal motto ‘Live Free or Die,'” Trump said in Portsmouth. “That’s pretty cool. Well, we’ll get it done without the dying part, but, you know, we don’t want the dying part. But if you’re willing to do that, if you have to.”
— Kabir Khanna and Olivia Rinaldi contributed to this report.
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Sen. Mark Kelly says feds need to do a “better job” of letting Americans know “there’s a huge amount of misinformation” on election
Washington — Sen. Mark Kelly said Sunday that the federal government needs to do its part to inform Americans of the vast swath of election misinformation that’s being consumed on social media platforms like X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.
“It’s up to us, the people who serve in Congress and in the White House to get the information out there, that there is a tremendous amount of misinformation in this election, and it’s not going to stop on Nov. 5,” Kelly said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Kelly, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he’s seen these misinformation operations target not only his state of Arizona, but also other battleground states.
“There is a very reasonable chance I would put it in the 20 to 30% range, that the content you are seeing, the comments you are seeing, are coming from one of those three countries: Russia, Iran, China,” Kelly said.
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In a committee hearing last month on foreign threats to the 2024 election, Kelly presented screenshots of Russian-made web pages showing fabricated headlines designed to look like Fox News and The Washington Post, targeted at voters in battleground states.
“So my constituents in Arizona and others — they seek to influence the outcome of these elections, and that is absolutely beyond the pale,” Kelly said at the Sept. 18 hearing. “We’ve got to do something about it.”
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump each have the support of 49% of Arizona voters, according to CBS News’ battleground tracker as of Sept. 30.
In another battleground state, Pennsylvania, Trump returned Saturday to hold a rally in Butler three months after an attempted assassination on him. He was joined by members of his own party and billionaire Elon Musk, who said Trump was the only way to preserve democracy and warned of a last election if he does not win in November.
Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Kelly called the social media mogul a hypocrite.
“He’s standing next to the guy that tried to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, saying that this is somehow going to be the last election and they’re going to take away your vote,” Kelly said. “And you know, it just doesn’t pass the logic test.”
At the White House press briefing on Friday, President Biden – speaking from the podium for the first time since taking office – said he’s confident of a free and fair election but alluded to the 2021 insurrection at the Capitol in his concerns on whether it will be a peaceful transfer of power.
“The things that Trump has said and the things that he said last time out when he didn’t like the outcome of the election were very dangerous,” Mr. Biden said. “If you notice, I noticed that the vice-presidential Republican candidate did not say he’d accept the outcome of the election, and they haven’t even accepted the outcome of the last election.”
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