MAGA, Trump React to DeSantis Surrender

PETERBOROUGH, Mass. — It was a passing driver who delivered the news to a group of about a dozen Trump supporters gathered at the corner of Grove Street and Wilton Road here.

For hours they’d been braving the cold against a backdrop of a Dunkin’ Donuts, a Rite Aid and a Job Lots store, waving large Donald Trump flags and holding up signs that read things like “Honk 4 Trump” and “Haley Has Democratic Donors.”

For the most part, the reception they received was positive. A great many passing motorists did indeed toot their horns as they passed.

While it was impossible to say exactly how many did so, it was clear far more had a positive response to Trump and his supporters than felt otherwise.

Over the course of 20 minutes or so only one was moved to roll down his window and tell the gathering to physically pleasure themselves.

Then came the driver in the late model Nissan who slowed, traffic behind him be damned, and delivered the word:

“DeSantis dropped out,” he yelled.

The cheer that went up was loud and sustained.

After it died down, Rebecca from Westminster, Massachusetts, a community about a half-hour drive away, explained what she was doing there two days before the New Hampshire primary: one in which she will be unable to vote.

“We just want to support Trump,” she said.

“And, you know, what happens here, in terms of a Trump victory, will benefit the whole country,” she added.

Asked why Trump is her man, Rebecca spoke as if the past eight years hadn’t happened and it was 2016 again.

“We like him because he’s a businessman. We like him because he is an outsider. And we like him because he’s not beholden to the party,” she said.

Fast-forwarding to today, Rebecca acknowledged the 91 felony indictments hanging over Donald Trump’s head, but said they don’t faze her.

“I mean, if you really think about all of his indictments, this man has been investigated more than anyone … and that should prove there’s nothing he’s guilty of,” she said.

“It shows he’s a pretty pure person,” she added.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended his Republican presidential campaign shortly after 3 p.m. Sunday, ending his White House bid just two days before New Hampshire’s Jan. 23 primary.

And unlike former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who left the race ahead of last week’s Iowa caucuses without endorsing anyone, DeSantis opted to endorse Trump, a detail his supporters in the sun-drenched cold on Wilton Road had yet to learn.

DeSantis’s decision leaves Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as the last major candidates in the race for the Republican nomination, effectively making New Hampshire moderate Republicans’ last chance to stop the former president from being the party’s nominee.

“It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” DeSantis said in a video announcement of his decision.

He continued: “I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee and I will honor that pledge.

“He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents,” he said.

Haley, campaigning in Seabrook, in the eastern part of state, responded to DeSantis’s departure, by saying he’d run “a great race … we wish him well.”

Later, in a written statement released by her campaign, Haley said, “So far, only one state has voted. Half of its votes went to Donald Trump, and half did not.

“We’re not a country of coronations,” she continued. “Voters deserve a say in whether we go down the road of Trump and Biden again, or we go down a new conservative road.

“New Hampshire voters will have their say on Tuesday. When I’m president, I will do everything in my power to show them they made the right decision,” Haley said.

The Trump campaign also released a statement in which it said, “With only a few days left until President Donald J. Trump’s victory in New Hampshire, we are honored by the endorsement from Gov. Ron DeSantis and so many other former presidential candidates. It is now time for all Republicans to rally behind President Trump to defeat crooked Joe Biden and end his disastrous presidency.”

The statement went on to trash Haley, calling her “the candidate of the globalists and Democrats who will do everything to stop the ‘America First’ movement.

“From higher taxes, to decimating Social Security and Medicare, and to open borders, she represents the views of Democrats more than the views of Republicans,” the statement said.

Back on Wilton Road, Doug, from Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, said he supports Trump because “I want my constitutional republic back.”

“I’m sick and tired of all the political persecution,” he continued. “They call Trump a tyrant, but that’s bull. I mean, who’s the tyrant now — he’s got 91 charges against him.

“And he’s a multi-billionaire. Trump could walk away at any moment — and I’ve told him that in person,” Doug said. “I got to shake his hand and I said, ‘You could walk away at any moment.’ And you know what he said? He said, ‘I love this country.’”

Doug said what originally drew him to Trump were “old videos” on YouTube dating back to before the 2016 election.

“If you watch them you see that in interview after interview he kept saying, ‘I don’t want to do this, but if I have to, I will.’ And I think it’s the same this time around. I think he has to. For us. For America.”

Saturday night, Robert and Emily Stevens were coming out of a Nikki Haley rally held in the massive conference room in a Courtyard by Marriott in Nashua, New Hampshire.

The two were best described as accidental attendees. They’d gone out to eat at a favorite diner and decided to attend on a whim.

“Truthfully, I didn’t know much about Nikki Haley until we came here tonight, but I really liked her. I love what she stands for … unfortunately, I just don’t see her being president.”

Asked why, Stevens pointed to the polls.

“It’s the numbers,” she said.

“Like him or not, he has the numbers,” she added with emphasis.

Robert Stevens said when the couple left their home that evening they happened to pass a venue in Manchester where Trump was holding a panel.

“There were thousands of people waiting in line,” he said.

But Stevens suggested the “numbers,” at least as represented by rally attendees, could be deceptive.

“I think with Trump, it’s become more of a show,” he said. “He says things that other candidates aren’t going to say and people eat that up. But at the end of the day, for the future of this country, we need somebody that’s actually … polished and … educated. … and I think as we get further into this, more people will come around to that way of thinking.”

Stevens also said he agreed with an assertion that’s central to Haley’s stump speech — that “there’s a lot of craziness that comes along with Donald Trump.”

“He was a fresh idea when he came on the scene and he was not a politician,” Stevens said. “He was a business person and yes, the country did well for a while, but I think the craziness that follows him is a big deal.”

As Stevens spoke, his wife Emily looked grim.

“She really resonated with me. Unfortunately it’s all about the numbers, and I just think Trump has a better chance of winning in November,” she said.

“At the end of the day, it’s all really a numbers game, right?” she added.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and at https://twitter.com/DanMcCue