A campaign staffer for former President Donald Trump in New Hampshire has been let go after deeming the state not winnable for Republicans.
Tom Mountain, a former Massachusetts Republican Party vice chairman, sent an email to Trump campaign volunteers claiming that “the campaign has determined that New Hampshire is no longer a battleground state,” according to the Boston Globe. Mountain also advised the Trump campaign to invest its resources more heavily into nearby Pennsylvania as a winning strategy.
Mountain said Trump was “sure to lose by an even higher margin” in New Hampshire than he did in 2016 and 2020. Trump lost the state in 2016 by just 2,736 votes but lost by a far greater 59,277 votes in 2020.
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania is seen as a must-win state for both Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump as it has the most electoral votes, 19, of all the swing states. In 2016, Trump flipped the state red for the first time since 1988, while in 2020, Biden turned the state blue once again by more than 80,000 votes.
“So for those who were active in the NH ground campaign in 2016 and 2020, and expected to do the same after Labor Day, the simple question is… what are we to do? GO TO PENNSYLVANIA,” Mountain reportedly wrote.
Because of this email, Mountain was asked to step away from the Trump campaign and “will no longer have any involvement,” senior campaign adviser Brian Hughes told the Boston Globe.
Hughes said the email was “a ridiculous misrepresentation of our ongoing operation in New Hampshire” and that “he will no longer have any involvement going forward.”
“This isn’t true,” Hughes told the outlet of Mountain’s email. “President Trump’s campaign maintains an on-the-ground presence in New Hampshire, including staff and offices, while Kamala Harris is parachuting in because she knows that the Granite State is in play. We look forward to building on the momentum that we have grown since the primary and sending New Hampshire’s four electoral votes to President Trump’s column on November 5.”
In his email, Mountain advised his now-former colleagues to move their working operations to nearby Pennsylvania.
“This is a must-win state,” Mountain wrote. “If we lose Pennsylvania we lose the election.”
Some electoral maps do point to this fact: If Harris wins the swing states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin but does not win Pennsylvania or Georgia, she will lose the election.
Signs indicate that the Trump campaign is aware of this and is investing heavily in the state. According to AdImpact Politics, the Trump campaign is investing $70.6 million in ads in Pennsylvania set to air between Labor Day and the election. It is by far the campaign’s highest investment, with the second-highest being a $38.7 million buy in Georgia and the third-highest being a $6.6 million ad investment in Michigan.
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While New Hampshire is a purple state with Democratic congressional representation and a Republican governor, the state has not voted for a Republican for president in more than 20 years. In terms of New Hampshire’s perceived winnability by the Trump campaign, the former president has not appeared there since he won its first-in-the-nation primary this January.
Steve Stepanek, who leads Trump’s campaign in New Hampshire, told the Boston Globe that Mountain “obviously has no idea what is going on in NH because he is from Massachusetts.”