Collision Course

New Hampshire Collision Course as Trump Holds First Town Hall Meeting

By Philip Rucker and Elise Viebeck

Call this the battle of the town halls. The Republican presidential candidates are not scheduled to appear on the same stage again until the Sept. 16 debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. But six of the leading candidates will be in the same area code on Wednesday, holding competing town hall meetings within close proximity to one another.

Front-runner Donald Trump will hold a town hall meeting — his first as a candidate — at Pinkerton Academy in Derry at 6:30 p.m. Trump has plenty of practice fielding questions from journalists at news conferences, but this will be the first time he answers questions from voters.

At the same time and only 20 miles down the road, Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who trails Trump in national and state polls, will hold a town hall meeting at a VFW post in Merrimack.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, no stranger to rollicking town hall meetings, will hold one of his own at 7 p.m. at Molly’s Tavern, a bar outside of Manchester, while Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will be at a house party in Derry, not far from Trump’s event. A couple hours earlier in the evening, Walker will hold a town hall meeting in Barrington.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former technology executive Carly Fiorina also are holding town hall meetings on Wednesday. Kasich’s is in Salem at 1 p.m., while Fiorina’s is in Laconia, on the scenic shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, at 5:30 p.m.

 Most of these candidates have come to New Hampshire to address an education reform summit on Wednesday at Londonderry High School. Bush, Fiorina, Kasich, Walker, Christie, as well as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, will appear at the forum. Trump is not expected to attend and the candidates will not share a stage. Instead, each will appear on his or her own to answer questions from Campbell Brown, a broadcast journalist-turned-education reform advocate.

The forum – sponsored by Brown’s new education-focused news outlet, The Seventy Four, and the American Federation of Children – is designed to spotlight education issues in the presidential campaign, especially support for charter schools.

However, more fireworks are expected at the town hall meetings later in the day. Such events are a staple of New Hampshire campaigns, as voters in the first-in-the-nation primary state prize their opportunities to ask candidates questions about any topic they choose.

For Trump, Wednesday night’s town hall meeting will be an important test of his performance skills. Can he think on his feet with voters? How will he deal with potential scrutiny from them? And will the outbursts and interruptions that make his news conferences and interviews so memorable go over well with a live audience?

Trump expects to draw the biggest crowd. After announcing on Monday that he had scheduled a town hall meeting to compete at the same time as Bush’s, Trump has laid down the gauntlet.