Global Courant
“That’s never going to happen.”
New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu said responded early last year over the prospect that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) would strip his state of the nation’s first presidential primary.
For more than 100 years, New Hampshire has hosted the first primaries in the United States, giving voters in the state a powerful voice in the process by which candidates ultimately receive their party nomination.
It was such a source of pride that the state even enshrined its earliest primary status in it its laws.
But the Democratic Party, at the urging of President Joe Biden, has been under pressure to reshuffle its primary calendar and make progress in states that better reflect U.S. demographics.
So in February 2023, the DNC relegated rural, largely white New Hampshire to second place on the primary calendar, behind South Carolina, over the state’s objections.
With primary season kicking off on January 23, New Hampshire’s Democratic primary will be a showdown – both between state and national party officials and between the candidates themselves.
The state has refused to give up its top spot, and in response the DNC has stripped the top spot of its delegates, making it purely symbolic. Biden, who is likely to face a tight re-election race in 2024, will also not appear on the ballot in New Hampshire.
But why is it important to go first? And with this year’s primaries widely expected to confirm Biden as the Democratic nominee, will the uproar in New Hampshire have any effect?
‘Point of pride’
Liz Tentarelli, president of the League of Women Voters New Hampshire, a nonpartisan group, likens the state’s primaries to when “the circus comes to town.”
National media arrive in droves and candidates criss-cross the state, an area of just over 15,000 square miles. Many presidential hopefuls are holding small, in-person town halls and meet-and-greets, allowing some of the state’s 1.3 million residents to connect directly with candidates.
“Voting is a point of pride in New Hampshire,” said Tentarelli, a resident of the small town of Newbury, about 30 miles northwest of the capital, Concord. Holding the first primaries, she explained, is “a big deal.”
“I think it reflects that New Hampshire is the state that is more aware of politics than some other states,” she told Al Jazeera, pointing to historically high turnout in the primaries and general elections.
“We are also a small state which makes it easy for candidates who are not massively funded to campaign in the state. They can travel to different cities and organize these events, and people come.”
According to Andrew Smith, professor of political science and chairman of the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Survey Center, holding the first primary election is primarily “culturally and historically important to the state.”
“It’s what New Hampshire people are known for,” he told Al Jazeera. “It was never our intention to hold the first primary. It happened a bit by accident.”
Nasty save moneyInitially, the state’s early primaries would coincide with Town Meeting Day, an opportunity for community gatherings. New Hampshire held its first presidential primaries in 1916, but four years later, in 1920, the state began its tradition of being “first in the nation.”
Since then, Smith said, New Hampshire residents have been willing to “fight” to keep their state’s top spot.
Supporters of Donald Trump cheer as he speaks at a rally in Durham, New Hampshire, in December (Brian Snyder/Reuters)
Trump leads, Biden not on vote
However, the 2024 primaries have been more moderate than in previous years, Tentarelli said.
That’s in large part because political observers expect this year’s presidential race to come down to a rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump, who lost the 2020 election.
Unlike its Democratic counterpart, the Republican National Committee has retained its traditional primary calendar, which began with the Iowa caucuses on January 15 and continued with the inaugural New Hampshire primary.
Trump remains the frontrunner in the party’s race, with a solid lead both in New Hampshire and nationwide. He also won a decisive victory in the Iowa caucuses.
But one of his Republican rivals, former U.N. envoy Nikki Haley, has gained ground in New Hampshire in recent weeks, according to recent polls.
And on the Democratic side, Biden’s absence from the New Hampshire primary has exposed tensions within the party itself. After the state’s fight with the Democratic National Committee over the new primary calendar, Biden has not filed paperwork to vote on Jan. 23.
That schism was further underscored by a tense exchange between state officials and DNC representatives.
In a letter from last week obtained by PoliticoThe DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee called the Jan. 23 primary “harmful,” “nonbinding” and “meaningless” for Democrats.
The letter reiterated that New Hampshire’s vote could not be used to elect Democratic Party delegates, who represent the state in choosing the party’s candidate for the general election.
New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella responded on Jan. 8, calling the DNC’s comments “false, deceptive and misleading.” He also warned that any attempt to discourage primary voters could violate state law.
Biden also hasn’t campaigned in the state, giving long-awaited Democratic candidates such as author Marianne Williamson and Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips a chance to post higher-than-expected primaries.
Williamson and Phillips “have been in action a few times, but haven’t generated a lot of interest this year because we know they’re aloof,” Tentarelli said. She added that among Democratic voters “there is a sense of annoyance, I think, that Biden is not on the ballot.”
But despite ongoing divisions between state and national party officials, some top New Hampshire Democrats have backed a grassroots effort to call on voters to write the president’s name on their ballots.
“While misguided DNC rules keep Joe Biden off the primary ballot here, New Hampshire Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents overwhelmingly support Joe Biden and plan to write him in,” the Granite State Write-up website reads In-campaign.
About 65 percent of likely Democratic primary voters in the state said they planned to write in the president’s name, according to a survey. poll in mid-November by the UNH Survey Center.
“Support for Biden has declined since September, but no strong challenger has emerged,” the survey said, noting just 10 percent support for Phillips and 9 percent for Williamson.
Meanwhile, a December survey from the Saint Anselm College Survey Center showed that Biden would beat Trump in New Hampshire by 10 percentage points in a hypothetical general election.
The center noted that Trump faces a “looming problem” in the state: Supporters of his Republican rivals Haley and Chris Christie, who recently dropped out, would prefer to support Biden over Trump if the pair faced off.
Signs promoting the write-in campaign to put Biden’s name on the New Hampshire Democratic primary ballot, in Hooksett, New Hampshire, January 15 (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters)
Expectations and momentum
The experts who spoke to Al Jazeera said not participating in the New Hampshire primary will have little effect on Biden’s ability to secure the Democratic nomination, or on his general election chances.
“I think by November most voters will have forgotten the issue around the primaries, and it’s a whole new game,” Tentarelli said.
Raymond Buckley, the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, echoed that sentiment. He said he doesn’t expect the primary battle to impact the general election.
“We are still ready for November and have a great year,” Buckley told Al Jazeera. He added that while Biden’s absence from the vote was “disappointing,” Democrats are still hoping for “robust turnout” in the New Hampshire primary.
Asked whether Biden would have to answer for his decision to forego the New Hampshire primary in his general election campaign, Buckley said that is still “some way away.”
“I’m sure there will be some brainstorming down there about what that message will be, and I look forward to hearing it,” he said.
Still, Dante Scala, a political science professor at UNH who has been observing the state’s primaries for more than two decades, said that if he were a member of the Biden campaign, he would try to downplay expectations ahead of the Jan. 23 primary .
That’s because a disappointing showing could raise questions about whether “there’s something to the idea that the Democratic base really isn’t happy with Biden.”
“That has been a story for months,” he told Al Jazeera. “Like, ‘Boy, a lot of Democrats say Biden is too old.’ Many Democrats say, “I wish we had other choices.” And now we will actually see some results.”
Biden’s decision not to participate in the New Hampshire primary is ‘disappointing,’ says the head of the state’s Democratic Party, Raymond Buckley (File: Leah Millis/Reuters)
The importance of New Hampshire does not lie in the number of representatives the country has, Scala emphasizes. Of the thousands of delegates scheduled to appear at the Democratic National Convention, New Hampshire will send only about 33.
But Scala explained that the New Hampshire primary does play an important role in helping presidential candidates build or lose campaign strength.
“The importance of New Hampshire is that we are the stage on which the candidates audition. And they are no longer just auditioning for us, but for the entire country,” he said.
For his part, Smith, the UNH political science professor, said the power of New Hampshire’s primary is largely tied to “the story that’s being told in the media about what happened.”
If “the story out of New Hampshire is that President Biden is losing in New Hampshire or almost being defeated by an unknown congressman from Minnesota, then that’s going to be a very difficult story to reverse,” he said.
“Because we’re already seeing a significant number of Democrats in New Hampshire and across the country wishing they had someone else as their candidate, but that’s not the case.”
