GOFFSTOWN, N.H. The incumbent president may be prevented from visiting the state to campaign in the 2024 primaries by Joe Biden’s attempt to have New Hampshire lose its first-in-the-nation primary.
His allies can, though.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a former rival-turned-cheerleader, traveled across state lines on Saturday to lecture on economic policy at presidential pit stop Saint Anselm College. The address was full of praise for the Biden administration.
A significant state Democratic Party fundraiser featured California Rep. Ro Khanna in May. Next month, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro will be the keynote speaker at the New Hampshire Democrats’ annual convention.
For a group of aspirational politicians, their travels serve some of their interests. However, they are also a means of supporting Biden when he is absent, given the ongoing disputes among Democrats in New Hampshire and nationally about the future of the state’s first-in-the-nation primary and the mostly unrestricted Republican presidential candidates’ campaigning there.
Since he doesn’t have a credible Democratic opponent, Biden has little motivation to campaign in the early primary states. However, incumbent presidents who could face challenges in the general election sometimes start their campaigns there and even attend events before the state’s primary.
Barack Obama, the former president, held a rally in New Hampshire two months before the state’s 2012 presidential primary. When voters went to the polls in January, he already had seven campaign offices there.
But Biden has put himself in a pickle in the state. He advocated last year for South Carolina, a more diverse state that helped him win the 2020 nomination, to take New Hampshire’s prestigious first-primary position and replace it at the top of the 2024 nomination calendar. The DNC adopted the president’s proposal, which would have Nevada and New Hampshire share the second primary date.
But Republicans in power of the state legislature and the governor’s office refuse to remove the requirement that New Hampshire hold its presidential primary one week before any other state.
Thus, the acrimonious impasse between national and state Democrats will likely result in an unofficial primary being held in New Hampshire without Vice President Joe Biden on the ballot.
The visits by Sanders and two of the Democratic Party’s rising stars provide platforms for highlighting the successes of the Biden administration in a purple state that Democratic presidential candidates have won — albeit occasionally narrowly — for more than 25 years.
Shapiro and Khanna are both members of the national advisory board for the Biden campaign, and Sanders serves as a crucial advocate for the president among progressives and young voters.
The party’s rising stars also use their trips to New Hampshire as a type of down payment in a state they believe is essential to winning the presidential primary in the post-Biden era.
“It’s good news for the primary that these rising stars would go to New Hampshire,” said Democratic consultant Chris Moyer. Moyer oversaw communications for New Jersey Senator Cory Booker’s presidential campaign in the state and is currently working on Cinde Warmington’s gubernatorial campaign here.
Distinguished guests “can also be top surrogates [for Biden] who get some attention instead of the president himself going to New Hampshire,” Moyer said.
To avoid being knocked out of the official early state window for 2024, New Hampshire Democrats have been given more time to comply with the national party’s demand that they hold its primary on February 3 after South Carolina’s.
Ahead of the subsequent DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting on September 14 in Washington, D.C., the most recent extension is set to expire on Friday.
However, New Hampshire Democrats out of power in Concord claim that Republican leaders, who won’t consider changing the legislation, and the secretary of state, who determines the dates of both parties’ primaries (likely January 23), have bound their hands.
“I don’t give a damn what folks in Washington are saying. We’ll hold our primary election. In an interview, Kathy Sullivan, a former New Hampshire Democratic Party chair and DNC member predicted that Democrats would turn out to vote in the first primary.
The state runs the danger of not having delegates at the nomination convention the following year if they don’t follow DNC regulations. Even more troubling, it’s possible that Biden won’t be on the ballot, which would put him in the difficult position of having to concede the first unofficial election contest to a fringe contender like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Marianne Williamson.
Democrats in New Hampshire have discussed running a write-in campaign for Biden to avoid such a humiliation on the way to his eventual renomination. However, according to Sullivan, no formal preparations have yet been implemented.
In the interim, it will be up to Biden’s supporters and campaign proxies to advance his agenda in New Hampshire during his extended vacation. Biden last visited the state in April 2022, even before he relocated last winter to displace New Hampshire as the first-place primary.
On Saturday at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, Sanders filled the void in front of a packed house.
He lauded the Biden administration for making “significant investments” in infrastructure and gave Biden credit for moving the country’s pandemic-damaged economy in the right direction.
The two-time presidential candidate made it clear that he wanted to see Biden remain in the White House even as he urged Democrats to adopt an “ideological change of course” to win back the working class.
She remarked that it is no secret that Sanders supports Joe Biden’s reelection as president. We both want to stop right-wing extremism, he said.
Here, other Democrats are similarly praising Biden. Shapiro “absolutely” intends to discuss Biden and his accomplishments during his keynote address at the New Hampshire Democratic Party convention at the end of September, according to a governor’s aide. Shapiro will do so through the lens of Pennsylvania.
The governor of the Keystone State plans to talk about how the Biden administration assisted in repairing I-95 in record time near Philadelphia following a bridge collapse earlier this year.
He also intends to draw attention to a program that the state and the administration established and which could bring Pennsylvania up to $400 million in federal funding to support workforce development.
At the historic McIntyre-Shaheen luncheon hosted by the state party in May, Khanna urged the president to run for office in New Hampshire. Still, the California representative highlighted the Biden administration’s legislative successes.
The DNC was contacted for comment by the Biden campaign. Officials there stated that they continue to provide monthly funds to the New Hampshire Democratic Party, assist in voter outreach initiatives, and support a communications embed aimed at the Republican presidential candidates running for office in the state ahead of what is still the first primary on the GOP side.
Additionally, DNC officials stated that they are pushing Democrats to keep traveling to New Hampshire and that they are committed to supporting all of the Democratic candidates there, especially with the governor’s office, the majority in the state legislature, and two congressional districts up for grabs in the upcoming election.
National Democrats believe New Hampshire represents one of their best opportunities to flip a governor’s seat next year due to the four-term resignation of the state’s popular Republican governor, Chris Sununu.
While Biden fights to unseat the state’s Democratic presidential primary for 2024, the high-profile race also provides handy cover for the party’s possible 2028 White House contenders to campaign in New Hampshire.
Even though Joe Biden isn’t on the ballot, everyone knows that New Hampshire will host the first primary and that he will win. But there will be other issues on the ballot, according to Ray Buckley, chair of the state Democratic Party.
It’s important for the country that New Hampshire elect Democrats in 2024. Therefore, we appreciate the support of anyone prepared to commit their name to the cause.