Are Democrats getting 'punked' in party-switching scheme to make Trump lose N.H.? What to know

CONCORD, N.H. — New Hampshire Democrats aren’t happy with their party over a move to strip the state of its first-in-the-nation primary status, but they’re not necessarily looking for a new one.

With the incumbent Democratic President Joe Biden unlikely to compete in the state’s contest amid the dispute, several national organizations urged Democratic voters in New Hampshire to drop their party affiliation before an October deadline so that they could vote in the state’s Republican primary early next year.

Both the Tell It Like It Is PAC, a group supporting former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and the nonprofit organization American Leadership Today mailed flyers to registered Democrats encouraging them to change parties prior to the state’s Oct. 6 deadline in hopes of preventing former President Donald Trump from winning the election, Politico reported.

Some flyers displayed scenes of rioters outside of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 , exclaiming in bold type, “This can’t happen again,” while others showed photos of Trump and impressed on recipients the importance of their votes, stating that it’s up to New Hampshire “to save our democracy.”

A small group of Democrats, who are based in Washington, D.C., say they canvassed in New Hampshire, too, and texted registered Democrats and unaffiliated voters in the state. The volunteer organization with minimal funds that popped up over the summer, PrimaryPivot, says it texted 38,000 registered Democrats in New Hampshire before the deadline.

But few Democrats appear to have made the switch — only about 4% changed their party affiliation since August, according to data provided by the New Hampshire’s Secretary of State’s office.

“We saw no significant movement. We were monitoring in a few key locations, and we didn't see anything of any significance,” New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley said in an interview.

That could be good news for Trump, who maintained an over 20-point lead in the latest USA TODAY/Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll in New Hampshire. His next nearest rival Nikki Haley polled at 19%, followed by Ron DeSantis at 10%. Christie was at 6%.

The small drift of Democrats may not impact the results of the primary. The percentage of voters in each party held at roughly 30%, with 40% registered undeclared.

Overall, the state says it has 879,512 voters, including 265,113 registered Democrats, 269,779 Republicans and 344,620 undeclared voters. The total number of registered voters in New Hampshire has shrunk since the beginning of August by about 17,000.

But residents of New Hampshire who are not currently registered to vote can still sign up. New Hampshire residents can register to vote and cast a ballot at their polling place in January on the day of the expected primary.

Enough to bump Trump?

Many Democratic voters who spoke to USA TODAY said they hadn’t heard of initiatives encouraging Democratic voters to switch affiliations, though some considered it.

Charlotte Wallace, a lifelong Democrat who moved to Durham, New Hampshire in 2020, chose to drop her Democratic Party affiliation so she could vote in the Republican primary, citing concerns about Biden’s age. She hasn’t decided who she’ll cast her ballot for yet, but said she’s considering Christie, former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

“I am very grateful to Christie for standing up to Trump in the debates. I am grateful to Pence for standing up to Trump when it really mattered and saving our democracy, and I would love to see a woman president,” Wallace said.

Elliott Kane, a resident of Exeter, New Hampshire, similarly considered becoming an undeclared voter for the primary but said it ultimately “felt like cheating.”

“I'm not a Republican, and it feels sort of like a moral betrayal to identify as one for even a split second,” Kane said, noting that he would have cast his ballot for Christie on the Republican side.

Originally from New Jersey, Kane, who is transgender, said that while he didn’t support Christie as governor and didn’t have “a lot of generous feelings” for the candidate, he believes Christie is the “most level-headed" in the Republican field.

“He actually had some trans neutral comments … which made me have some respect for him, which is weird, because I'm from New Jersey,” Kane said.

PrimaryPivot says it is looking to set up a ground operation in New Hampshire ahead of the primary in an effort to convince more unaffiliated voters to cast a ballot against Trump.

The organization released a flyer on Friday promoting an Oct. 28 event for undeclared voters at New England College in Henniker that it said former New Hampshire attorney general Tom Rath, the campaign manager for Biden challenger Marianne Williamson and an unnamed Christie campaign surrogate would be participating in.

“If Trump underperforms in New Hampshire, and then he underperformed in a number of states on Super Tuesday, then you would have very much talk of a competitive primary,” said Robert Schwartz, a foreign affairs professional who is spearheading the effort with a few of his friends.

Democrats who do opt to vote in their party’s primary are unlikely to see Biden on the ballot. Last year, the president recommended a change to the Democratic primary calendar that ripped New Hampshire of its first-in-the-nation status, pushing the state’s primary to Feb. 6, on the same day as Nevada and three days after South Carolina.

State law requires New Hampshire to hold the country’s first primary, and its GOP-run legislature refused to change the statute to accommodate the Democratic National Committee effort.

The state still has not set a date for the primary, though Secretary of State David Scanlan has indicated that it will take place at the end of January.

Current and former Democratic officials in the state are exploring a write-in campaign to keep Biden from losing the first contest of his reelection campaign, and the state party chair, Buckley, poured cold water on the effectiveness of the party-switching campaigns.

“I think for those 200, maybe, people, that do that, you know, good luck to them. They got punked,” he said. “But I don't see it of any significance at all.”

This article originally appeared on Aberdeen News: Some New Hampshire Dems opt to vote in GOP primary to defeat Trump