Tom Cotton is already laying the groundwork in New Hampshire for a 2024 presidential run insider@insider.com (Jake Lahut) October 21, 2020
Tom Cotton is already laying the groundwork in New Hampshire for a 2024 presidential run
Tom Cotton, Tom Cotton, Tom Cotton are posing for a picture: Sen. Tom Cotton. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images© Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas was in New Hampshire on Monday, his second visit to campaign for down-ballot Republicans in a state worth four electoral votes.
> The pair of candidates Cotton stumped for remain relative long shots in their bids to unseat Democratic incumbents in the House and the Senate. And Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, leads President Donald Trump by an average of 11 points in the state.
> But New Hampshire has an outsize influence as the first-in-the- nation primary state, and Cotton was not subtle when asked about speculation that he will run for president in 2024. "I expect I'll be back to New Hampshire again in the future," Cotton told Insider.
> Cotton's messaging at the events and in interviews with Insider came down to a focus on cultural issues like antifa and rioting in cities.
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LONDONDERRY, New Hampshire — Sitting cross-legged in front of a rifle display case and dressed for fall in New England with a green fleece vest, Tom Cotton was waiting his turn to speak.
The 43-year-old Republican senator from Arkansas has long been mentioned as a future presidential contender, and here he was, testing the waters in the first-in-the-nation primary state.
Cotton has grown louder on the national political stage in recent years.
He has become omnipresent on Fox News, embraced his own genre of trolling on Twitter, and demonstrated an attunement to online culture wars and an ability to capitalize on them with his controversial New York Times op-ed article that led to the resignation of the paper's editorial-page editor.
On the podcast circuit, Cotton talks about reading Plato and Heidegger as a college student studying the "great books," how he views Iran as one of the world's most dangerous powers, how he disagrees with President Donald Trump's withdrawal of American influence on the global stage, and how he was once a pretty good high-school basketball player for the Dardanelle Sand Lizards.
Fleece-vest Tom Cotton, however, has a much more pared-down message for Granite Staters.
On Monday morning, Cotton made sure his face mask was on for the lone camera rig — from WMUR, the only local TV news outlet in New Hampshire — at a press conference he held with Matt Mowers, a Republican congressional candidate.
Inside the local American Legion chapter in Londonderry, a wealthy suburb of Manchester, his hefty double-tied blue mask rested around his neck as law-enforcement officials across the table discussed the challenges of their profession following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
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