New Hampshire Democrat Ron King had the evidence on display: photographs of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and other Democratic presidential hopefuls who passed through Concord on their way to victory, or defeat.
“My wife and I hosted 11, 12 candidates. Obama was here when he was running,” Mr. King told The Epoch Times, adding that he was “very heavily” involved in local politics.
A “Write-In Joe Biden” sign was on display in Mr. King’s yard, and many other New Hampshire yards, on Jan. 19, 2024, just days ahead of the state’s presidential primaries.
While Marianne Williamson, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-N.H.), and even electoral performance artist Vermin Supreme appear on Democratic primary ballots in the state, the incumbent president will be missing.
The situation eerily parallels the New Hampshire primary of 1968, when incumbent President Lyndon Baines Johnson barely eked out a victory in a New Hampshire write-in campaign, before dropping out soon after. That, in turn, set the stage for the famously turbulent Democratic convention in Chicago—the same city that will host the 2024 Democratic National Convention.
Democratic Turf War and a Test for Biden’s Viability
President Joe Biden’s glaring absence comes after a dispute between the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the state over New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation status. National Democrats wanted to end that tradition, leading their party’s primary season calendar with South Carolina.
That followed a letter from President Biden to a DNC committee regarding how primaries would be arranged. Diversity, the letter stressed, was something that should be more of a strength early in the process. Both Iowa and New Hampshire, traditionally the first caucus and first primary state, respectively, are heavily white.
“We must ensure that voters of color have a voice in choosing our nominee much earlier in the process and throughout the entire early window… Our early states must reflect the overall diversity of our party and our nation,” the letter read in part.
But while Iowa Democrats compromised over timing their party’s contest, the government officials in the “Live Free or Die” state who run its primary process defied them.
The current secretary of state, Republican Chris Scanlan, told The Epoch Times in 2023 that his state’s primacy in primaries is enshrined in law.
The former state lawmaker who was behind that statute, Democrat Jim Splaine, wrote in a column for the Portsmouth Daily Herald and other local outlets that Democrats’ maneuvering to keep President Biden off his state’s ballot has “put him front and center in Tuesday’s primary election, risking for him a defeat—even if he wins.”
Mr. Splaine predicts the state’s Democratic primary will come first in 2028 too: “As in the past, our state law protected our primary this year; it will do so again in four years.”
Registered Republicans who might want to throw their weight behind another Democrat in that primary would have had to register as Democrats by Oct. 6, 2023. Independent voters have more leeway.
“An undeclared voter may vote in a state primary or a presidential primary. You will be required to choose either a Democratic or Republican ballot when you go to vote,” a webpage on the Secretary of State’s website notes. It explains that such voters can return to their undeclared status right afterwards, even prior to departing the polling place.
However, Republicans and conservative-leaning independents may not want to forego the chance to vote in the GOP primary, particularly in light of worries that independent voters and some early-registering Democrats will be pulling for former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley.
For now, and in spite of his absence from the campaign trail there, President Biden is polling strongly in the state. A Jan. 21 survey from the University of New Hampshire and CNN shows the incumbent president at 63 percent of first choices among likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire.
Yet, that’s down from 70 percent in July 2023 and 78 percent in September 2023—and, notwithstanding the write-in campaign’s attempt to educate voters, writing in a name is a little harder than simply choosing from a menu of options.
‘Nobody Knew What the [Expletive] to Do’ About Biden’s Absence From Ballot
One New Hampshire Democrat who spoke with The Epoch Times conveyed the impression of a chaotic and somewhat late response to President Biden’s absence from the state’s Democratic primary ballot.
“Nobody knew what the [expletive] to do,” said Micha Dillge, a bartender who said he was a volunteer with the “Write-In Joe Biden” campaign.
He described the effort as a “complete ad-hoc thing” that only really emerged in the autumn of 2023. “Write-In Joe Biden” launched soon after the president announced he would not be on the ballot and just days after Mr. Phillips filed to appear on it.
“We’re making it up as we go along,” Mr. Dillge said.
Others supporting the write-in campaign sounded more positive.
“Biden will pull a strong write-in vote—there’s no doubt in my mind,” John Grady, a retired middle school principal, told The Epoch Times.
He has been a “strong Democrat since 1968,” he said. That year, he supported Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.), an anti-war candidate running against incumbent President Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Vietnam War.
Mr. McCarthy’s strong second-place finish in the New Hampshire primary that year preceded President Johnson’s decision to withdraw from the presidential contest. Like President Biden, President Johnson was running a write-in campaign in the state with the backing of top Democrats.
The Facebook page for the Biden write-in campaign has supportive videos from national Democratic figures like Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).
“President Biden could do the same [drop out] if early primaries, including ours, indicate a lack of strength, leaving time still available starting in February for other Democrats to step up prior to the Democratic National Convention in August,” Mr. Splaine wrote in his recent column.
Mr. Grady said the “party faithful” he knew were preparing to write in President Biden’s name. He predicted that Ms. Williamson and Mr. Phillips, who are now actively campaigning in the state in the vacuum left by President Biden, will “go down as a footnote in history.”
“Hopefully he’ll at least be the one that has the most votes,” Susan Covert, a Biden supporter in Hopkinton, told The Epoch Times.
New Hampshire Democrats Worry About Democracy, Climate Change
Trump supporters in New Hampshire who spoke with The Epoch Times listed the economy and the border among their top concerns. They’re worried about what four more years of President Biden might mean for the country.
“With Biden and the way the economy’s going—with inflation and all of these different things—people are just tired of it,” Sam Tocci told The Epoch Times. Mr. Tocci, who was visiting from Virginia, was parking his car in the driveway of his brother Jed’s home in Hopkinton.
But Democrats preparing to write in President Biden’s name are equally—or even more—concerned about what a second Trump term might look like.
Mr. King believes the former president “wants to be a dictator.”
“I was born in Germany,” Mr. Dillge said, adding that he fears the United States could slip into National Socialist-style authoritarianism.
Ms. Covert said climate change was one of her major concerns, based on what she has observed around the Granite State—specifically, the date of the first frost advancing further in the calendar.
Yet, even for her, the climate comes second.
“Democracy’s first, and then climate change,” she said. “It’s terrifying to me that we could have a president who doesn’t care about democracy.”
The latest talk of President Trump as a dictator came as a result of his comments to Fox News’ Sean Hannity during a town hall. He said he would not be a dictator “except for day one,” citing rapid executive-level moves he intended to make on energy and the border.
At a Jan. 20 rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, the former president again addressed the issue.
“I wanted to be cute. I always gotta be cute… We were having fun,” President Trump said, accusing the media of selectively editing the clip. President Biden is the genuine “threat to democracy,” he said.
Shortly afterward, a man in the audience charged towards the stage. He was escorted out before he could get too close to President Trump.
Mr. Tocci said that Democrats were wrong to worry about any dictatorial tendencies from him because of the liberty-minded nature of his base.
“We held our guns and voted for Trump, because if he was going to be a dictator, the Left and the Democrats didn’t have to worry about being oppressed,“ he said. ”The Right and Republicans would have been the first ones to say, ‘Nope!’”
Everyday New Hampshire Democrats Divided on First-in-the-Nation Status
While Mr. Splaine and some other local Democrats are strong defenders of New Hampshire’s place in the primary pecking order, some supporters of the write-in campaign were more critical of it.
Mr. Dillge characterized the status quo as undemocratic.
“I think it’s not only legitimate what they did, but it’s illegitimate for New Hampshire to think they get to go first all the time.”
Mr. Grady also defended the DNC against his state’s decision. He jokingly added that local top Democrats “would probably take me behind the woodshed and give me a good thrashing” for voicing that opinion, a sign of the split between top Democrats within the state and at least some in the party’s rank and file.
Like others who spoke with The Epoch Times, he argued that the heavily white state isn’t demographically representative enough—a perspective that the former secretary of state, Bill Gardner, does not share.
“Denying the people of this state because we’re too white is a shame,” he told The Epoch Times.
Mr. Grady suggested that influential local figures, including Gov. Chris Sununu, like their state’s primary coming first because “it boosts their ego.”
But Mr. King, the man who has hosted national Democrats for decades, thinks that the Granite State should retain its first-in-the-nation status.
“I understand that the Democrats are looking for a more diverse population,” he said before adding that New Hampshire was “special” in some other ways.
“Here in New Hampshire, we’re small enough; they [candidates] can get around to all the towns if they need to or want to,” he said, arguing that South Carolina, several times larger than New Hampshire, is too big for that approach to be realistic.
In New Hampshire, he said, “When you talk to people, you better tell them what you’re thinking and give them the essence of what they want to know.”
The “Write-In Joe Biden” sign on Mr. King’s property did not stay in place for too long. It was either stolen or placed out of sight.
It’s as self-evidently true today as it was in 1968: New Hampshire politics, conducted at a very human scale, is not above human folly, ferocity, and, yes, failure.
The Epoch Times reached out to the New Hampshire Democratic Party and the DNC for comment.
What’s the bet he STILL loses there..
Uninformed Insane voters write Joe in,,,,Informed sane voters write him off! Now you know why they import illegal drugs by the millions, to keep us all in stupored states of Biden Brain confusion to be manipulted to the whim the their puppet masters. The real pandemic that destroyed the last 3 years is Trump Derangement syndrome, more deadly to a nation than any COVID-19 scam that sanctioned the lockdowns that promoted the unconstitutional altered mail-in ballots that put Joe over the TOP, and America under the bottom of the swamp.
AND Imported MILLIONS of illegals, so they could get them all registered and voting dem!
NH motto Live Free or DIE has new meaning these days re: we can choose to either stay Free or be oppressed & DIE under Diversity, Inclusion, Equity.
Wish I knew why people who are lucky enough to live in a free country would keep electing Dem Party politicians who not only have long history of race baiting & exploitation & gross fear mongering (climate, pandemic, guns, police, Christians/Jews, voting & now their bass-ackward version of democracy) but who also now openly support oppressive governance via Socialism, Marxism &/or Globalism.
Or why people would keep electing GOP politicians who have no “fire in the belly” to unite themselves & the public to eradicate the subversive political, judicial & Corp tyrants who are intent on gaining the power by which they can force we citizens into submission to their dictates.