‘I Don’t Feel Any Pressure,’ Donald Trump Declares at Rally

MILFORD, N.H. — If people thought that his second-place finish in Iowa had discouraged Donald J. Trump or distracted him from his goal of winning the Republican presidential nomination, Mr. Trump made it clear Tuesday night that they were dead wrong.


In his first public appearance since he placed second to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas in Monday’s Republican caucuses, Mr. Trump told reporters and later a rally of 5,000 people here that he had started out last year given no chance in Iowa and ended up almost winning.

He also predicted he would do better in New Hampshire because “it suits me better.” He did not specify why, but the state has far fewer religious voters than Iowa. He did say New Hampshire has “a normal voting process,” meaning a primary, which does not require the intense organization that Iowa’s caucuses do.


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Mr. Trump looked somewhat tired, and most of his statements to the news media lacked his usual boasts about being a winner who does nothing but win. He did not cite polls that put him in the lead here, which he did frequently during the buildup to the caucuses, polls that turned out to be wrong.


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He told reporters that he would have preferred to win Iowa and that he wanted to win New Hampshire, but that if he did not, “it wouldn’t be horrible.” He then added, “I would like to finish first.”

Shrugging off questions about whether he had made mistakes or would do anything differently in New Hampshire, Mr. Trump said, “I don’t feel any pressure,” adding, “We’ll do what I have to do.

He was more animated at the rally, where he excoriated the news media for portraying him as a loser while it cast Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who came in third, as a big winner.

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Trump fans who gathered here hours before the rally said they were not dismayed in the least that he did not win Iowa.

“Iowa hasn’t picked a winner” in years, said Ron Boucher, 68, a builder who lives in Vermont.

His brother, Brian Boucher, 53, a supermarket manager who lives in Epsom, N.H., said his enthusiasm for Mr. Trump was undiminished because his chief characteristic had not changed. “He speaks the truth,” Mr. Boucher said.
Mr. Trump has generally avoided the kind of intimate retail politicking that Iowa and New Hampshire expect. Instead of town hall meetings and house parties where voters can buttonhole him, he has, through sheer force of personality, relied on large crowds at rallies and the free news coverage that has followed to drum up excitement about his candidacy. He did say on Tuesday night that he might be holding more town-hall-style meetings in the coming days

“Trump was selling the sizzle, not the steak,” said Matt Strawn, a former chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa.

“Iowans were hungry for more,” he added. “More substance. More opportunity to actually pepper Trump with questions to discern if his more recent conservative policy conversions were authentic. More respect for the Iowa caucus process and traditions.”

But Mr. Trump’s failure to organize a true get-out-the-vote operation in Iowa undermined him. He never seemed fully committed to the state, visiting only sporadically and rarely engaging in the more personable campaigning that voters in Iowa — and New Hampshire — reward.

“It was apparent to me that Trump created a large enough pool of people to win the caucus, but his campaign failed to get them out to vote,” said Roger Stone, a longtime adviser who helped set up Mr. Trump’s campaign but parted ways with it last summer. Mr. Stone agreed with Mr. Trump, however, that New Hampshire was a better fit.

At the rally here, all of the speakers exhorted members of the audience to make sure they go to the polls Tuesday.

At his news conference, Mr. Trump did allow that perhaps his skipping the last debate in Iowa hurt him, but he cast it in a positive light. Referring to his staging a fund-raiser for veterans instead of attending the debate, he said that if he could choose between coming in first or coming in second while raising $6 million for veterans, he would choose the fund-raising.

Mr. Trump was endorsed here by Scott P. Brown, the former Massachusetts senator who, after losing his re-election bid to Elizabeth Warren, moved to New Hampshire and ran unsuccessfully against Senator Jeanne Shaheen. Mr. Brown said Mr. Trump was “the one person who has the independence and can be the change agent to get Washington working again.”nytimes