Hunter to visit N.H. for first time since announcing presidential ambitions

U.S. Representative Duncan Hunter, a California Republican, was flying to Manchester on Friday night and will stay in New Hampshire through Monday evening.

Oddly, no one in the state knew about his upcoming trip until Friday afternoon, when he began calling Republican activists before and after he gave a speech on the House floor.

In one of those calls, for an interview with the Globe, Hunter said he wanted his trip to be “low-key.” Hunter told Republicans that he didn’t have much of a schedule at all and that he would pop in unannounced to local Republican leaders and media.

Hunter, 54, is the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee.

On Friday, an e-mail from Mitt Romney’s sons suggested that whoever the Republican presidential nominee is will have to raise $100 million. Hunter said he wouldn’t need to raise that kind of money because “most of that money goes to pay for consultants that help them look like they are conservative and I am conservative already.”

Hunter has already visited Iowa and South Carolina.