New Hampshire announced Wednesday that it will hold Republican and Democratic presidential primaries on Jan. 23 – officially rejecting demands from the Democratic National Committee and President Biden to relinquish first-in-state status.
New Hampshire has become the first state to hold a primary election in every cycle since 1920 and state law requires it to hold contests at least a week before the others.
However, the DNC approved a new calendar last February where South Carolina will hold its first election on February 3, 2024, New Hampshire and Nevada will follow three days later, Georgia will go a week after that, and Michigan will launch. primary school two weeks later, on February 27.
The new calendar was created in response to demands by liberal activists that the DNC hold early voting contests in states with more diverse populations than Iowa and New Hampshire.
Iowa — which will hold its Republican caucus on Jan. 15 — will still hold an in-person Democratic caucus that day to conduct party business, but will allow mail-in voting for candidates until March 5, per a compromise with the DNC.
New Hampshire officials were in no such conciliatory mood.
Biden will not appear on the New Hampshire ballot.EPA
“Using racial diversity as a barrier in trying to reshape the presidential nominating calendar is a bad precedent,” Secretary of State Bill Scanlan told reporters in Concord Wednesday. “At what point does a state become too old or too rich, or too educated or too religious to hold early elementary schools?”
Biden finished an embarrassing fifth in the 2020 New Hampshire primary and did not file to place his name on the ballot this time, per DNC guidelines.
A historical marker displayed outside the Statehouse in Concord, New Hampshire, on November 15, 2023, describes the history of the nation’s first presidential election. AP
Rebel challenger Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) plans to campaign heavily in New Hampshire in an attempt to pull off a surprise upset of Biden. In 1968, a strong second-place performance by Sen. Gene McCarthy (D-Minn.) sparked a Democratic free-for-all that prevented President Lyndon Johnson from seeking re-election.
“At stake is who gets to decide the party’s nominees: the elites in the national party committee with control of the nominating calendar or the electorate,” Scanlan said. “New Hampshire believes the voters of each state should decide who they prefer as a candidate for president, not the power brokers in Washington, DC.”
As a result of New Hampshire’s opposition, the DNC will likely strip its 33 delegates to next year’s nominating convention in Chicago.
President Joe Biden is flanked by New Hampshire political officials visiting the NH 175 bridge over the Pemigewasset River in Woodstock on November 16, 2021. AFP via Getty Images
An Emerson College/WHDH poll released Wednesday found 44% of likely Democratic primary voters are undecided about who they will support. Of the remainder, 27% said they would write in Biden, 15% said they would support Phillips, 10% said they would support self-help author Marianne Williamson and 5% said they would support “someone else.”
“With Biden not officially on the ballot in New Hampshire, Democratic Primary voters appear to be confused about which candidate to support and how to vote for them,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling.
The poll also found Biden beating former President Donald Trump in a hypothetical New Hampshire head-to-head, 47% to 42%. When given a four-cornered ballot test that included third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, Biden leads Trump 40% to 37%, with RFK Jr. got 8% support and the West got 1% support.
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