On the trail: NH Republicans show of force at Trump inauguration

The White House is seen in Washington, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024.

The White House is seen in Washington, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. J. Scott Applewhite/AP photo, file

By PAUL STEINHAUSER

For the Monitor

Published: 01-17-2025 11:27 AM

Former presidents, top political leaders from across the nation and the world, tech billionaires, cryptocurrency titans, and well-known performers are planning to attend Monday’s inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

Also showing up in force: a sizable contingent of New Hampshire Republicans, who will be present in the nation’s capital as the former president takes office for a second time in the White House.

New Hampshire GOP chair Chris Ager, along with Republican National Committee members from New Hampshire Bill O’Brien (the former state House speaker) and Mary Jane Beauregard, got a jump start on the rest of the Granite State gang, as they came down to Washington D.C. early to attend last week’s RNC winter meeting.

Ager told the Monitor that the Granite State Republicans’ attendance at the RNC meetings and at the Trump inauguration will benefit the New Hampshire GOP as it looks ahead to the 2026 elections, when the state will hold elections for governor, the state legislature and executive council, both U.S. House seats, and a high-profile U.S. Senate election.

“The networking with people who can help provide resources to win in ’26 is very helpful,” Ager emphasized as he looked forward to “getting to meet the people in person who can help us.”

As part of their networking, the NHGOP held a ‘Live Free or Die” cocktail reception at the Capitol Hill Club, just blocks from the U.S. Capitol, on Sunday, and was planning a “First in the Nation” brunch for Tuesday.

Also in Washington D.C. for the Trump inauguration and the slew of accompanying festivities – former GOP Gov. Chris Sununu.

But his Republican successor in the Corner Office, Gov. Kelly Ayotte, will not be attending. Ayotte, who was sworn in a week and a half ago as New Hampshire governor, held a gubernatorial inaugural ball on Saturday.

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The president-elect’s inauguration will also be a chance for top Trump allies and supporters from New Hampshire to reunite for a few days in the nation’s capital.

Among them are longtime Trump adviser and former 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Steve Stepanek, the former state GOP chair who served as a Trump campaign state co-chair in 2016 and senior adviser in 2024, and longtime Trump supporters and surrogates Fred Doucette, the current Speaker Pro Tempore in the New Hampshire House, and former state representative Al Baldasaro.

Keeping NH first in the nation

Ager said the show of force by New Hampshire Republicans at the Trump inauguration will also benefit the state party as it aims to keep its treasured position as the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state.

“All of our visitors from New Hampshire are essentially ambassadors for the first in the nation primary,” he emphasized.

And New Hampshire received more good news when RNC chair Michael Whatley reiterated last week, as the party’s winter meetings got underway, that “I have not had any conversations with anybody who wants to change the calendar” in the 2028 election cycle.

Unlike the rival Democratic National Committee, which upended its 2024 presidential nominating calendar, the RNC didn’t make any major changes to their longstanding tradition of Iowa’s caucuses leading off the schedule, with New Hampshire’s century-old first-in-the-nation primary as their second contest.

“I don’t think that changing the calendar really helped the Democrats at all,” Whatley argued. “And I think that us, making sure that we are working our system the way that we always have, is going to be critical.”

O’Brien, interviewed on the sidelines of the RNC meeting, told the Monitor that Whatley indicated that someone from New Hampshire will likely sit on the 11-person special committee on the presidential nominating process, the panel that will recommend the 2028 calendar to the RNC’s Rules committee.

“That puts us in a position where we can certainly directly control the schedule,” O’Brien, who sits on the powerful Rules committee, said.