It’s been another long week on the path towards the Iowa Caucuses for Asa Hutchinson as he visited four states in an effort to breath some life into his struggling campaign. With the airwaves dominated by Donald Trump once again, and with several high-profile candidates announcing their bid, Hutchinson met with voters in the early states and tried to grab some attention at two big conservative events in Colorado and Georgia.
After nearly a week of close-to-radio silence from the former Arkansas governor following his latest trip to Iowa, Hutchinson reappeared with a trip to South Carolina. What he actually did there appears to be a bit of a mystery, with the visit garnering no press attention, while campaign social media was also silent. In fact, the only evidence that he was there seems to be a single press release which was released from Charleston on Friday. He then flew into Denver, Colorado to speak at the Western Conservative Summit.
Saturday saw a trip back to the deep south for Hutchinson where he spoke at the Georgia GOP convention in Columbus, sharing the platform with, amongst others, former President Trump, a man who he has directed considerably ire at since he launched his campaign.
Hutchinson appeared on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, calling for Trump to drop out of the race. Speaking from Keene, New Hampshire, he also criticised fellow candidate Vivek Ramaswamy for promising to pardon Trump in the event of a conviction. Staying in New Hampshire on Monday, Hutchinson held a small coffee event to discuss issues with Bedford voters.
Overall, it was a busy few days for Asa Hutchinson, touching down in four states, delivering two big speeches and holding small scale events in the early primary states. Polling continues to be woeful for the campaign (he hasn’t hit above 1% in any national or state level poll this week), and media coverage also appears to be waning as higher profile names jump in the race. His stops in New Hampshire and South Carolina had absolutely no media footprint whatsoever, while his speeches in Georgia and Colorado were far from the main event at both functions.
His own social media is lacking in updates and most posts are filled with comments calling on him to drop out. Most of his coverage so far has been driven by appearances on the big cable networks but a once-a-week mildly viral clip of the former governor criticising Trump is no longer going to cut it in a race now involving several better resourced and better-known candidates. He is also now facing the looming specter of needing to garner 40,000 individual donors before late August in order to make the debate stage. However, his efforts to do this so far seem far from adequate. We will see if the campaign can turn things around and find some desperately needed momentum.