Democrats Got Themselves a Big Ol’ Mess in New Hampshire

There was a time when the New Hampshire primary looked as if it could be the most intriguing, consequential, and unpredictable GOP contest in recent memory. Deep-pocketed Ron DeSantis was primed to make a last stand there; it was also the only state Nikki Haley seemed within striking distance of winning outright.

Now, with DeSantis out and Trump looking like he’s all but sewn up the nomination, almost all the drama—and uncertainty—is on the Democratic side of the aisle.

On Tuesday, Democratic voters in New Hampshire will head to the polls for a surprisingly high-stakes primary race that won’t officially count at all. Joe Biden isn’t even on the ballot. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t make news. Not the least because Biden—with his record low approval ratings and miserable head-to-head polls—is hardly in a position to weather even a symbolic loss. And he’s (quietly) taking it very seriously.

In part because of a poorly executed calendar change that Biden himself instructed the Democratic National Committee to make (more on that in a minute!), New Hampshire is going ahead with its Democratic primary without official Democratic Party support. Which means that Biden’s name can’t be on the ballot.

Still, his camp isn’t taking the possibility of losing an unauthorized primary lightly. High-powered Democratic proxies, including governors and cabinet secretaries, have hit the trail and are working the phones, while a well-funded super PAC—all unaffiliated, of course—has blanketed the state in glossy mailers trying to persuade voters to write in Biden’s name on the ballot and spare him the embarrassment of a poor showing.

A refresher on how we got here: Last year, Biden ordered the DNC to shake up the Democratic presidential primary calendar, bumping New Hampshire from its centurylong perch as the first primary state in the nation. It was a favor, of sorts, to South Carolina, which has officially cut New Hampshire in line. Formally, the move was justified by the demography of the two states: South Carolina has a lot of Black voters, who are a core constituency of the Democratic base nationally, and New Hampshire is very white. But the justification was dubious for a number of other reasons: New Hampshire’s population sports one of the highest percentages of college-degree holders, and college degree holders are also a core constituency of the Democratic base nationally. But more to the point, Democrats are actually competitive in New Hampshire and are not at all in South Carolina.

A perhaps less official reason for the change? Joe Biden got trounced in New Hampshire in 2020 before winning South Carolina, which rescued his presidential hopes from the brink. He promptly named South Carolina’s Jaime Harrison—understudy of Rep. Jim Clyburn, whose endorsement of Biden was credited with swinging the Palmetto State for him—to chair the DNC. Then, he had the DNC make South Carolina first.

And yet, with that signature Biden flourish, the plan wasn’t entirely thought through. New Hampshire, rather famously, has a state law on the books requiring that the state hold its primary a week before anyone else. No one in New Hampshire really wanted to change that law—it’s a particular point of pride—and the Republicans who control the governor’s mansion and the secretary of state office were even less amenable to helping Biden out. So New Hampshire forged ahead with its primaries as usual.

Now we have a defiantly unauthorized primary happening in New Hampshire, for which there are official DNC prohibitions in place. Per DNC rules, presidential candidates are not allowed to campaign, spend money, give speeches, hold rallies, or even put themselves on the ballot in an unauthorized race. Which is how we get to Biden not appearing on this week’s primary ballot. (The DNC’s retaliation: New Hampshire’s delegates won’t be seated at the nominating convention.)

In short, it’s a mess. For just about any other incumbent candidate, the story would probably end there. But Biden is historically weak, with the lowest favorability rating of any president in the past 15 years, and there are buzzards circling—specifically Democratic long-shot candidates Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson. Biden can’t officially win, but he can’t afford to lose. And while it seemed as if Biden was restaging the Democratic primary calendar as a coronation for his own reelection campaign, his only real electoral strength right now is with white voters and old voters. New Hampshire is top 10 nationally, by percentage, in both. His polling numbers with young voters and voters of color are dreadful. So, actually, New Hampshire is exactly the place where Biden would probably look strongest, and God knows he needs a show of strength right now. But again: not on the ballot.

Democrats are well aware that for Biden’s image, even though this primary doesn’t officially matter, it actually matters a lot. Biden allies have swarmed the state: In the past six weeks, according to NBC News, nine of his cabinet secretaries have descended on New Hampshire, including four in the second week of January. Officially, they all just so happen to be there for business related to federal programs and nothing—nothing!—to do with Biden’s reelection campaign, which they haven’t mentioned, because they’re not campaigning.

The write-in Biden push, a volunteer effort that has sprung up in lieu of a campaign, is getting all-hands-on-deck support from elected Democrats not named Biden. In the House, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, California Rep. Ro Khanna, and New Hampshire Rep. Annie Kuster have backed the effort; Democratic Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, and Maura Healey of Massachusetts have engaged in some sort of campaign volunteer work to aid the effort directly.

Meanwhile, Biden is getting super PAC support from a group called Granite for America. Helmed by former state Democratic Party Chair Kathy Sullivan, the group is self-styling as a small-dollar grassroots-style organization. And sure, it may not be cutting television ads. But recent campaign finance filings show that the group has spent $1.26 million on mailers, radio and digital advertising, phone-banking, and more, upping its outlay drastically in just the past handful of days. (So if there has ever been such a thing as a “grassroots super PAC”—and there has not—it’s not this.)

And while that may not sound like much, it was more money than either one of Phillips’ two national super PACs had spent in New Hampshire until late last week, when a new TV ad buy (and a new megadonor in Bill Ackman) gave him a slight advantage. (New Hampshire is all-important to Phillips, who has big-money backing and very few chances to prove himself as a legit threat to Biden inside the Democratic primary.)

Democrats won’t say how much Biden needs to win this thing before they can call it a win: According to NBC News, Democratic strategists feel that “Biden just needs to not embarrass himself,” a refrain that we’ll probably be hearing a lot in the coming year.

Meanwhile, another write-in campaign has taken off, threatening a separate headache for Biden and his allies. A “vote cease-fire” campaign is gaining traction in the state, as actual grassroots activists encourage voters to write in “cease-fire” as a rejection of the Biden administration’s unequivocal support of Israel’s war in Gaza.

It’s unlikely that a “cease-fire” write-in vote will topple Biden. But according to former New Hampshire Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky, who first proposed the idea in a letter to the editors of the Concord Monitor newspaper, the campaign seems like a meaningful way to register discontent with Biden’s policies, rather than vote for one of the other long-shot candidates. “There’s not much money behind it—it’s the epitome of grassroots,” he told me on the phone. “Hopefully it’s enough to rank and be reported on Election Day.”