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MANCHESTER, N.H. – Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee is spending Friday in New Hampshire.
The conservative senator’s mission is to help raise money for fellow Republicans running in the year’s midterm elections in the key general election battleground state.
But Blackburn’s stop in the state that for a century has held the first presidential primary in the White House race is sparking some speculation about her potential national ambitions at the top of the GOP ticket or as the running mate in the 2024 cycle.
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As Fox News first reported, Blackburn will headline a New Hampshire GOP business roundtable in Manchester on Friday afternoon. In the evening she’ll keynote an annual Lincoln-Reagan fundraising dinner hosted by the Merrimack County and Concord City GOP committees.
Generating even more buzz, Blackburn will travel to Iowa early next month to serve as keynote speaker at theIowa Faith & Freedom Coalition’s 22nd Annual Spring Kick-Off. The group is a leading non-profit social conservative organization in the state whose caucuses for half a century have kicked off the presidential nominating calendar.
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“She is a legitimate national figure with a strong conservative message, and I think people will take her very seriously,” Chris Ager, a Republican National Committee member from New Hampshire, told Fox News.
Ager said he believes Blackburn’s invitation to headline Friday night’s fundraising dinner is “an indication of some of the interest that people in the state have to hear her.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Feb. 24, 2022, in Orlando, Florida.
(AP Photo/John Raoux)
Concord City GOP committee chair Andrew Georgevits, who invited Blackburn, noted that the senator is “popular with our conservative base, she’s a regular contributor on Fox News, which our base watches a lot, and she is a big fighter for conservative values.”
And he offered, “I truly think she’d be an amazing vice president.”
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Asked by Fox News about 2024 during an interview in Orlando, Florida last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Blackburn didn’t rule anything out.
But like many others who might harbor national ambitions in 2024, she emphasized her efforts on behalf of Republicans running in 2022.
“I’mworking to make certain we take the majority back in 2022. And in Iowa, I will be there to help and support Sen. Grassley and the members of Congress,” Blackburn said. “We’ve got great female members there. We’re really proud of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.”
She added that “in New Hampshire, we’re going in to help campaigns and the state party, and then we’re going into other states for other colleagues to bolster the vote to make sure that women know the Republican Party, we’re the party of parents.”
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Blackburn’s political team said that so far this cycle the senator’s raised nearly $200,000 for other Republican candidates, and has endorsed a handful of conservative candidates across the country.
Fox News’ Kelly Laco contributed to this report.
