Face of Nation : President Trump backed former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in his potential Senate run, in comments Thursday ahead of a campaign rally in New Hampshire.
The state’s senior Democratic senator, Jeanne Shaheen, is up for re-election, but the race isn’t at present expected to be competitive. Mr. Lewandowski hasn’t formally announced his candidacy but has said he was considering it. Mr. Trump won the state resoundingly in the 2016 Republican primary, then lost it to Hillary Clinton by less than one-third percentage point, suggesting his endorsement would be invaluable in a primary race.
Trump campaign aides said Wednesday that they didn’t know whether the president planned to endorse Mr. Lewandowski at Thursday night’s rally. One aide said advisers were on “pins and needles” about whether the president would mention the Senate race in his remarks. Mr. Lewandowski is expected to attend the rally. But Mr. Trump made his support clear. Early Thursday, he retweeted two tweets from Mr. Lewandowski’s account that speculated about his run.
In a radio interview, he said of his former aide: “I don’t think he’s made that decision yet. I will say this, if he ran, he’d be a great senator.” He added: “If he ran, I think he’d be No. 1. I think he’d be hard to beat in New Hampshire.”
Republicans Bill O’Brien, the former New Hampshire House speaker, and Donald Bolduc, a retired Army brigadier general, are already in the running. Ms. Shaheen won her second term in 2014 by a margin of 3.2 percentage points.
Republicans currently have 53 seats in the Senate. If Democrats win the White House next year, they’ll have to pick up three of those seats to also take control of that chamber. If Mr. Trump wins re-election, Democrats would need four, since Vice President Mike Pence would hold the tiebreaking vote.
Ms. Shaheen isn’t a top target this cycle for national Republicans, who have been focusing on more vulnerable Democrats like Doug Jones in Alabama and Gary Peters in Michigan. Mr. Lewandowski’s entry would crowd the primary race, and if he wins the primary, his controversial record could be a hindrance in the general election.
Mr. Lewandowski managed Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign until June of that year, when he departed after being accused of grabbing a reporter at a campaign event—an action he has denied. Mr. Trump replaced Mr. Lewandowski at the helm of his campaign at the urging of Mr. Trump’s older children and some of his senior advisers.In 1994, as a college student, he attempted a run for a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Democrats in New Hampshire hoped Mr. Lewandowski’s entry into the Republican race would make an already nasty primary even worse.
