Democrats kicked New Hampshire out of the first spot for 2024
The parties set their own primary calendars, but for decades Republicans and Democrats have followed roughly the same schedule: Iowa holds the first caucus, then New Hampshire holds the first primary. Republicans are still doing that this year.
But Democrats dramatically changed up their primary schedule for 2024. After Black South Carolina voters helped Biden win the nomination in 2020, the Democratic Party chose South Carolina to go first this year and pushed Iowa way forward to March. New Hampshire was supposed to go second alongside Nevada, then Michigan.
Democratic officials emphasize the party still sees value in New Hampshire being an early voting state. Like Iowa, it’s largely White, but it epitomizes small-government retail politics, they say.
“This showcases the diversity of the party and the country,” said a Democratic official of the new order, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Rural, urban, Midwest, West, South.”
Democrats also point out that New Hampshire doesn’t have a great track record of picking the eventual nominee. Actually, it’s been terrible: Only once in modern history has it picked the eventual nominee, and that was John F. Kerry, who was from neighboring Massachusetts. (New Hampshire voters argue that it’s less about the result, and more about how they winnow the field.)
But New Hampshire decided to go first anyway
It’s holding a primary anyway on Tuesday, for both Democrats and Republicans. New Hampshire’s election officials note that a decades-old state law requires it to be the first primary in the nation. (Iowa doesn’t count, because it’s a caucus.)
New Hampshire Democrats argued behind the scenes they didn’t care if they got penalized for breaking the rules. It’s a pretty low-stakes primary, given there’s no real question about who will be the nominee.
But that will change in 2028, when there won’t be a Democratic incumbent running. If New Hampshire defies the rules again, candidates will have to choose between their party’s rules and the media attention that comes from winning the first-in-the-nation primary.
Biden sided with the party over New Hampshire
The fight between the Democratic National Committee and New Hampshire over the calendar quickly got contentious. The DNC decided to penalize New Hampshire by taking away its roughly two dozen delegates. The primary there is “meaningless,” the DNC declared this month, adding: “…[P]residential candidates should take all steps possible not to participate.”
New Hampshire responded by accusing Democrats of trying to suppress voter turnout. “Falsely telling New Hampshire voters that a New Hampshire election is ‘meaningless’ violates New Hampshire voter suppression laws,” the state’s attorney general wrote to the DNC in January.
The Biden campaign long ago decided to follow the party’s guidance and not compete there. “While the president wishes to participate in the Primary, he is obligated as a Democratic candidate for President to comply [with party rules],” Biden’s campaign manager wrote in a letter to New Hampshire Democrats.
But every other Democratic contender is on the New Hampshire ballot
Beyond New Hampshire, Biden’s 21 primary challengers are hardly a factor, but one of them might win this primary. But the win will be symbolic, since the state has been deprived of its delegates.
The most prominent challengers are Rep. Dean Phillips (Minn.) and author Marianne Williamson. They have been campaigning hard in the state, leaning into the anti-establishment argument against the Democratic Party. “They are working against all of us,” Phillips said on the campaign trail. “They are suppressing the voters of New Hampshire by saying your vote does not matter.”
But there’s a kind-of-unofficial write-in campaign for Biden
If Biden won the New Hampshire primary, it would be through a write-in campaign being led by grass-roots Democrats. The Biden campaign is not involved in this, because he can’t compete in the state. A group of New Hampshire Democratic Party leaders have launched a campaign to urge voters to write in his name. It’s unclear if he could win that way. Write-in campaigns are historically difficult.
President Lyndon B. Johnson actually won New Hampshire that way in 1968. One of the only successful write-in campaigns in modern history came in Alaska, when Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) lost her primary but won a write-in campaign to win the general election. Unlike Biden, she was actively involved in the campaign and she won, but still only got 39 percent of the vote.
New Hampshire is also an open primary, meaning voters not registered with a party can choose which primary ballot they’d like. It’s actually pretty normal in the state for independents who lean left to vote in the Republican primary to affect that outcome, for example, and vice versa.