Michael Avenatti, the high-profile lawyer for Stormy Daniels who’s mulling a 2020 presidential run, will attend a Democratic Party fund-raiser in New Hampshire on Sunday.
In a statement, the party in New Hampshire confirmed Avenatti “will attend the Hillsborough County Democrats’ Summer Picnic in Greenfield, NH. Several top Democratic elected officials and candidates will also be in attendance.”
Party officials dubbed the event the “Hillsborough County Democrat’s Summer Picnic with Michael Avenatti” and said proceeds would “contribute to Hillsborough County efforts to elect Democrats up and down the ballot.”
Avenatti’s fame has skyrocketed as the lawyer going to bat for Daniels, an adult film star who claims she had a brief affair with President Trump more than a decade ago and wants to tell her story. Trump denies the assertion. The parties are engaged in ongoing civil litigation.
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Avenatti tweeted in July that he would challenge Trump in 2020 if the polarizing Republican seeks reelection and if “no other candidate in the race that has a REAL chance at beating him. We can’t relive 2016. I love this country, our values and our people too much to sit by while they are destroyed.”
His weekend appearance in New Hampshire is significant, because it’s a state that White House aspirants often visit to lay the groundwork for their campaigns, owing to its status as the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state.
But the New Hampshire Republican Party certainly isn’t cheering him on.
“Granite Staters have heard enough from Michael Avenatti during his numerous visits to the CNN newsroom to know that his exploration of a run is a ridiculous attempt to expand upon his 15 minutes of fame,” said Joe Sweeney, a spokesman for the state GOP, in an e-mail. “While New Hampshire Democrats attend a picnic with Avenatti this weekend as he floats a 2020 run, New Hampshire Republicans will be pounding the pavement and contacting voters to secure Republican victory up and down the ballot this November.”
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On Tuesday, Avenatti tweeted a white paper of sorts laying out his positions on a number of hot-button political issues, including paid family leave, infrastructure, unions, education, campaign finance, marijuana, gun control, foreign relations, climate change, and the role of the cabinet.
On gun control, Avenatti wrote that he supports background checks and bans on assault weapons and bump stocks. He also backed a requirement for “gun manufacturers to be held to the same civil liability standards as other product manufacturers in the United States.”
In addition, he wrote that officials should “forcefully call out Russia as a serious threat to our democracy and make it clear that we do not serve at the hand of Vladimir Putin. We must impose severe consequences, not lip-service, for Russia’s meddling in the 2016 elections and ensure that it never happens again.”
Avenatti last week was in Iowa, whose caucuses are the first major contest in the presidential election.
Material from the Washington Post was used in this report. Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.