First-term Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt, a military veteran and former President Trump surrogate, was far from his home state of Texas on Tuesday. As reported by Fox News, He was in Philadelphia to headline the opening of Trump’s first campaign office in Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state for the 2024 election.
“The person that’s going to come back and save this country from the brink is Donald John Trump,” said Hunt, a Black Republican and rising GOP star, to supporters and reporters crowded into a small office in the city’s northeastern corner.
While Trump’s fundraising has surged following his recent conviction—the first for a current or former president— and he leads Biden in key swing state polls, his campaign and the Republican National Committee lag behind Biden and the Democratic National Committee in grassroots outreach and get-out-the-vote efforts.
The Biden campaign has hired over 500 staff and opened more than 175 coordinated offices across battleground states. In Pennsylvania alone, Biden’s re-election campaign, the DNC, and the state party have 24 coordinated offices and hundreds of staffers.
President Biden, a Pennsylvania native, has frequently visited the state since launching his re-election campaign. Last week, he and Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned in Philadelphia together for the first time. According to Yahoo News
“We do need to catch up a little bit, but we are going to open offices all over the state of Pennsylvania,” Vince Fenerty, the GOP chair in Philadelphia, told Fox News. He emphasized, “We have the time to catch up. People are going to jump on the Trump train and the locomotive is going to move fast.”
Fenerty highlighted the strategic location of the new office: “We did it in this part of the city because it’s ethnically diverse, racially diverse, and we want to start here because we want to build a very broad coalition of all Americans to be for President Trump.”
Philadelphia is predominantly Democratic, with Biden winning 81%-18% over Trump in the city four years ago. However, Hunt noted, “We are going bravely where no Republicans in the past 20-30 years have gone before. We are not playing catch up. We are actually fishing where the fish are.”
Hunt expressed confidence in making inroads with minority communities: “We know that we are making some very good strides in the Black community and among Hispanic men and Hispanic women. So guess what – we are here right now not playing catch up, but to put the final nail in the coffin.”
