The event was to mark Trump’s first political rally in three weeks.
President Donald Trump is postponing his planned rally Saturday in New Hampshire, the White House said, citing a tropical storm threatening parts of the mid-Atlantic and southern New England.
Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters traveling to Florida with the president on Friday that the event — slated to be held in an aircraft hangar in Portsmouth — would be delayed by a week or two. She cited the threat of Tropical Storm Fay, which is expected to bring rain to the region.
“The rally scheduled for Saturday in Portsmouth, New Hampshire has been postponed for safety reasons because of Tropical Storm Fay,” Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said in a statement. “It will be rescheduled and a new date will be announced soon.”
The event was to mark Trump’s first political rally after a multiweek hiatus caused by a nationwide surge in coronavirus cases and after his planned comeback in Oklahoma turned into a debacle.
Trump, trailing in the polls, is eager to signal that normal life can resume despite a rampaging virus that has killed more than 130,000 Americans. He is to hold his first in-person fundraiser in a month on Friday in Florida.
The Portsmouth rally was scheduled after aides spent weeks studying what went wrong in Tulsa three weeks ago. It was billed as a massive, defiant return to the political stage but instead produced a humiliating sea of empty seats and questions about the campaign’s ability to attract people to large events in a pandemic.
Trump’s Friday fundraiser takes him to terrain where COVID-19’s surge threatens his hold on a must-win state and raises questions about Republican aims to hold their nominating convention in Jacksonville next month. Trump will also hold a small event supporting the people of Venezuela and visit U. S. Southern Command in Miami to highlight a reduction in the flow of illegal drugs into the United States, though much of the credit belongs to the pandemic, which has paralyzed economies, closed borders and severed supply chains.
It was unclear how many people would attend the New Hampshire rally, campaign officials acknowledged. Conceding that another sparse crowd would raise questions about the future of Trump’s rallies, the campaign has taken additional steps to make attendees feel safe.
Unlike the one in Tulsa, which was held indoors where the virus more easily circulates, the rally in Portsmouth was to be partially outdoors, held in an airplane hangar open on one side with the crowd spilling out onto the tarmac before Air Force One.
