State Republican Committeewoman Amy Carnevale first saw potential in Donald Trump’s run for president at a New Hampshire campaign breakfast called Politics and Eggs.
It was early winter of 2015 – cold – but at four in the morning there was a line of people outside the venue waiting to hear Trump speak.
The event was geared towards the business community and politicians, but Carnevale said Trump opened it to the general public, something other candidates who attended other Politics and Eggs breakfasts didn’t do. Carnevale noticed that, and she noticed the line of voters he drew in the darkness that New England winter morning.
“It really did feel like a movement on the ground,” said Carnevale, a Marblehead resident. “It was a different type of political event and people saw in him a leader who could really change the status quo and who could change Washington. I sensed that’s what was wanted by the American public and that’s the primary reason I got on board.”
Carnevale served as a Trump delegate at the Republican National Convention, she attended his inauguration and she’s pleased with his first 100 days in office.
Republicans approve
According to Gallup polling, Trump’s approval rating has ranged from a low of 35 percent in the days after Republican’s failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act to a high of 46 percent shortly after his inauguration.
But Trump’s approval ratings among members of the GOP tell a different story. Gallup reported on April 20 that an average 87 percent of Republicans approve of the job he’s done so far.
About 33 percent of voters in Massachusetts cast their ballot for Donald Trump in November – 1,090,893 people. Among that number is Amanda Kesterson, president of the Gloucester Republican City Committee.
Kesterson said Trump has been working to fulfill promises he made on the campaign trail – promises to focus on repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, to shrink the size of the federal government and to secure the nation’s borders.
She has supported some of Trump’s most controversial moves so far, including his now-halted executive orders temporarily restricting travel from some Muslim majority countries and his proposal to build a wall along the nation’s southern border.
Kesterson said a posture of strength in the White House is important, adding Trump’s actions on immigration and recent strikes in Syria and Afghanistan will help keep Americans safe.
“We have not had a strong presence in the White House for eight years, but we have it now,” Kesterson said. “Bullies don’t pick on the strong. They pick on the weak. If a foreign power or a terrorist organization or anybody in this world looks at America as weak, they are going to do what they can to pick on us.”
Like Kesterson, Melrose Republican Ted Hunt thinks Trump has faced unfair coverage from media and obstructionism from Democrats such as Massachusetts senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren – hindering actions he believes would be good for the country.
“Because of all the adverse press and the press is on the opposite side, it’s been kind of rocky,” Hunt said of Trump’s first 100 days.
But Carnevale and Kesterson count the addition of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court as an important, concrete victory of Trump’s first few months in office and both said Trump’s budget
proposal – which included increases to defense spending and cuts to arts, science and anti-poverty programs – is a good starting point for cutting government waste.
“The federal government is bloated,” Kesterson said. “I think the arts are really, really important, but I don’t think it’s the primary responsibility of the American taxpayer. People are wondering why there is never an end to what’s taken out of their paychecks and they question whether what they’re getting is really worth it. That’s what I see at the local level.”
Both Carnevale and Kesterson were disappointed with the failure of the GOP’s replacement healthcare bill, which they said would have been a good step in improving the US healthcare system. Kesterson said her family’s premiums went up with the passage of the ACA, and she believes the proposed replacement bill would have “moved the needle” in a positive direction.
“It addressed many of the problems, even if it didn’t fix every single one of them,” Kesterson said.
Going forward from day 100, Kesterson hopes Trump revisits healthcare reform, and Carnevale said he should fill vacant positions in government departments and replace hold-overs from the Obama administration that she said are slowing progress on Trump’s policies.
But, in sum, Kesterson said Republicans in Massachusetts are satisfied with the new president.
“We’ve seen an uptick in interest in joining our committee and coming to our events because of Donald Trump,” Kesterson said. “The way politics have traditionally run was turned on its head by Donald Trump and the smart people will see that as instructive, that voters are really, really tired of the same narrative. They want something different and this time, that’s what they voted for.”