PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — While Republicans couldn’t stop talking about him this week, a hoarse Donald Trump delivered brief remarks Thursday evening to accept the endorsement of the New England Police Benevolent Association at a seaside hotel.
Trump, the Republican front-runner for president, spoke for less than 10 minutes during his first trip to New Hampshire since calling for a ban on Muslims entering the country.
Trump was the only candidate to accept an invitation to address the police group, according to Rich Brabazon, the executive vice president of the association, who said they have 1,600 members in New Hampshire.
Dennis Rizzuto, a Carver, Mass., police officer and a board member who voted for Trump, said he didn’t have any pause about Trump’s comments about Muslims. Rizzuto said that Trump is right overall in highlighting the need to address those who come into the country illegally.
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Trump told the invitation-only crowd that he felt vindicated in his comments about a Muslim ban.
“I was watching the shows this morning and I am watching the shows tonight, and [they said], ‘Well you know, Trump has a point, the visa system is not working,’ ” Trump said. “There is nobody in this country, if I wanted to be, who couldn’t be more politically correct than me. Nobody, I have a high education, went to an Ivy League school, I know everything. I could be so good, but you would all fall asleep.”
Trump’s statement Monday calling for the ban on Muslims entering the United States came less than a week after a mass shooting in San Bernardino killed 14 people. FBI officials have said the couple who carried out the shooting were Muslim and had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
Outside of the event, roughly 200 protesters held signs, some of which read, “Hate Won’t Grow on Granite,” in the crisp December air. On the other side of the street, next to a large row of television satellite trucks, a group of supporters for US Senator Bernie Sanders held up “Bern the Hate” signs among Trump’s backers.
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The latest New York Times /CBS nationwide poll points to this divisive dynamic in the nation’s electorate. Trump leads the GOP field with 35 percent support from likely GOP primary voters in the survey. But 64 percent of respondents across the general electorate said they feared a Trump presidency.
In New Hampshire, home of the first primary on the presidential nominating calendar, Trump holds a commanding 18 percent lead over any other candidate in the GOP field. The CNN/WMUR poll showed Trump with 32 percent, and US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida with 14 percent. All other Republican candidates were in the single digits in the survey.
“Not only has his comments this weekend hardened his supporters here, I have found that those who were on the fence are coming our way,” said Trump’s New Hampshire campaign co-chair Stephen Stepanek, a state Representative from Amherst.
James Pindell can be reached at james.pindell@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jamespindell, or subscribe to his daily e-mail update on the 2016 campaign at bostonglobe.com/groundgame.