Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will hold a town hall in Sandown, New Hampshire this evening in what marks the candidate’s second visit to New Hampshire in one week.
Trump’s event will begin at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time. It is closed to the public, but it can be viewed in the embedded YouTube player via Right Side Broadcasting.
This event was not a part of Trump’s original schedule for this week, being added only within the last few days. Although Trump has held question-and-answer sessions before, this is the first town hall he has ever done. It’s no coincidence that he’s doing so three days before the second presidential debate, which is a town hall. Some have worried that Trump will struggle in this format, especially against Hillary Clinton, who has campaigned for president in the past and is highly accustomed to the ins and outs of a town hall.
The Trump campaign says this event will be small and intimate, according to WMUR. At the moment, this is Trump’s final event of the week, and so he will likely be taking Friday and Saturday to prepare for the debate on Sunday. Before the last debate, he reportedly did very little preparation, holding a rally on the weekend before the event took place.
On Sunday, Trump has what might be one of his final chances to shift the momentum back in his direction. After Trump’s poor performance in the first debate, Hillary Clinton began to take back her lead in the polls, and although Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, did quite well at the vice presidential debate, that event was seen by a much smaller audience and is unlikely to make an impact on the election. Trump must now decide if he wants to emulate the calm, collected demeanor of Pence, or double down on the aggressive and braggadocious style that characterized his first debate performance.
Trump most recently visited New Hampshire on September 29th, when he made a stop in Bedford. Clinton has a significant lead in the state’s polls at the moment, ahead of Trump by 6.3 points in Real Clear Politics’ polling average.