The Excerpt podcast: Primary day in New Hampshire

On today's episode of The Excerpt podcast: New Hampshire voters head to polls for the first-in-the-nation primary. USA TODAY Congress, Campaigns and Democracy Reporter Rachel Looker explains why New Hampshire's voter turnout is so strong. The Supreme Court says feds can remove barriers in Texas meant to block migrants. USA TODAY White House Correspondent Joey Garrison looks at President Joe Biden's abortion strategy, as he expands abortion medication access. Climate change denial still thrives online.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it.  This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Taylor Wilson:

Good morning, I'm Taylor Wilson. And today is Tuesday, January 23rd, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, it's primary day in New Hampshire, plus the Supreme Court rules on razor wire barriers at the southern border and President Joe Biden is expanding abortion medication access.

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Its primary day in New Hampshire. After Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race this weekend, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is front-runner Donald Trump's last remaining viable competition. But according to an average of recent polls compiled by real clear politics, Trump is getting around 54% of the New Hampshire vote compared with around 37% for Haley. Trump posted a rally last night in Laconia, New Hampshire, where he called for the Republican Party to come together. He was joined by former GOP presidential candidates in the race, including South Carolina senator Tim Scott, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. Haley meanwhile discounted Trump's endorsements from politicians calling them elitist who don't understand the country. She told NBC news that she doesn't want their endorsements and wants those of "the hardworking people of New Hampshire and South Carolina."

President Joe Biden won't appear on the Democratic ballot today. The Democratic Party tried pushing New Hampshire later on the primary schedule to make South Carolina the nation's first contest. As New Hampshire officials and national Democrats clashed, Biden didn't even register for the primary. Instead, his supporters are carrying out a write-in effort on his behalf against Congressman Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson. Meanwhile, the New Hampshire Attorney General's office is investigating a fake robocall that uses Biden's voice to try to dissuade democratic voters from participating in the primary. You can stay up on all the latest throughout the day from the Granite State on usatoday.com.

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New Hampshire has some of the most engaged voters in the country and often lands in the top spot when it comes to the highest primary voter turnout rate. I spoke with USA Today congress, campaigns and democracy reporter, Rachel Looker, for more. Rachel, thanks for hopping on The Excerpt today.

Rachel Looker:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So Rachel, let's start here. How does New Hampshire compare to other states when it comes to turnout rates of voters in the primaries?

Rachel Looker:

So New Hampshire often leads the country when it comes to these turnout rates of eligible voters in primaries. It's interesting to look at the numbers. In four of the last six presidential election cycles, New Hampshire had the highest primary turnout rate of any states in the country. And it's interesting because some of these rates are close or above 50% of eligible voters who turn out for the primary. And this number is more than what some states see even during a general election.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. Rachel, I want to get to why so many people show up to vote in New Hampshire. Does its first in the nation primary status make an impact here?

Rachel Looker:

Yes, that's a great question. I actually got to speak with Andrew Smith, he's the Director of Polling at the University of New Hampshire's Survey Center, and he said that there's really several reasons that can be attributed to the high turnout, including New Hampshire's reputation as being first in the nation for the primary. New Hampshire almost views their primaries as a holiday, a civic holiday. It's really a tradition in the state. Again, being first in the nation, there's this expectation to participate and to vote on primary day.

New Hampshire residents also have higher incomes and education levels, coming in about the top 10 of all of the states compared to the rest of the country. And Smith told me that this translates to an increased likelihood in voting. And one of the other reasons he mentioned is candidates spend a lot of time campaigning in New Hampshire. After the Iowa caucuses, they usually head over to New Hampshire. The state is smaller, so it makes campaigning and holding different events and town halls in all corners of the state a lot easier. So with voters kind of being bombarded by these campaign events and seeing these candidates, they often are more engaged.

Taylor Wilson:

And Rachel, another quirk of New Hampshire voting is that undeclared voters get to choose which party's primary to vote in. How much of a factor is this in boosting the turnout?

Rachel Looker:

It's definitely a factor to consider when looking at engagement in the state. In New Hampshire, an undeclared voter gets to pick which party's primary they would want to participate in. So that just gives voters more options, more ways that they can participate in the process, which increases the likelihood they might turn out.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, a million-dollar question. It is primary day, what can we expect from voter turnout in the Granite State later today?

Rachel Looker:

So there's absolutely an opportunity to break records later today in New Hampshire. The Secretary of State predicted last week that 322,000 republicans will turn out to vote in the state's primary. And this surpasses turnout levels in the last two election cycles. So the prediction is it could be higher than anything we've seen in recent cycles.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, Rachel Looker covers congress, campaigns and democracy for USA Today. Thanks as always, Rachel.

Rachel Looker:

Yep, thanks.

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Taylor Wilson:

The Supreme Court yesterday allowed the Biden administration to remove razor wire barriers that Texas built along a 29-mile stretch of the Rio Grande meant to block migrants at the southwest border. The five to four ruling marked a temporary victory for the Biden administration, giving the federal government the upper hand in its fight with Texas, while the underlying lawsuit continues. Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott installed the razor wire as part of a broader effort to deter undocumented migrants from crossing the border. But the Department of Homeland Security said federal law gives border patrol agents authority to access private land within 25 miles of the border and that state laws cannot be used to stop those agents from carrying out their work. The agency told the Supreme Court that the razor wire is affecting migrants who have already entered the United States and making it harder for federal border agents to apprehend them. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said yesterday that destruction of the state's border barriers will not help keep Americans safe, and he said the fight is not over.

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President Joe Biden is expanding abortion medication and contraception access as part of a broader abortion strategy ahead of the 2024 election. I spoke with USA Today White House correspondent Joey Garrison to learn more. Joey, thanks for hopping on.

Joey Garrison:

Hey, Taylor. Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So Joey, what steps is President Joe Biden taking to expand access to abortion medication and contraception?

Joey Garrison:

Yeah, so one of the new actions is expanding coverage for no-cost contraception through the Affordable Care Act under new guidance from federal agencies. In addition, federal employees will have greater access to contraception under other federal guidelines to be issued to insurance providers. And then the Health and Human Services Department is reinforcing to insurance companies, as well as Medicaid and Medicare programs, that they must provide contraception to people they serve. So again, these aren't the biggest actions in the world, but the Biden administration is trying to do everything it can with its federal authority to provide and ensure access to abortion.

Taylor Wilson:

Joey, does this latest move from Biden show a strategic shift to his presidential campaign to really double down on abortion issues as a motivating force for his supporters?

Joey Garrison:

Yeah, so the actions that were announced on Monday coincided with the 51st anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, which of course, with the conservative leaning Supreme Court was overturned a year and a half ago in the Dobbs decision. Biden and Democrats are very much running on restoring abortion rights in this campaign. They think it's a way that democratic voters, young voters, progressives will be energized to the polls, and they have a lot of evidence backing that up. Of course, in 2022, Democrats succeeded expectations in the midterms. A lot of that was driven by that decision on Roe v. Wade that it happened months prior.

And then every time abortion has been on the ballot in some form or fashion in various states, the democratic aside the pro-abortion rights side has been victorious in all eight or nine of those instances. And so there's going to be a number of things, particularly in a rematch against Donald Trump that Biden is going to try to make this election about. But Democrats are pretty confident that despite shortcomings that Biden might have as a candidate and concerns that voters have with him, that this abortion issue will be front and center in a big driver to the polls for Democrats.

Taylor Wilson:

Where does Biden stand on codifying abortion protections that were once enshrined in Roe? And just generally Joey, what's next for this abortion strategy from Biden?

Joey Garrison:

President Biden's big pledge, and that he's been making this for some time, is he wants to get support in Congress to codify the Roe v. Wade protections that were later overturned. That's obviously a big hill legislatively because you probably need a democratic controlled house, which isn't the case right now, but also probably a strong enough majority in the Senate where you could overcome any sort of filibuster, that would be like 60 votes. But nevertheless, it's something that Biden is campaigning on. And it looks very likely that Biden will be running against Donald Trump and it was Donald Trump's three Supreme Court nominations that pushed the court essentially to have the conservative majority to overturn Roe v. Wade. Each one of those three Trump appointments cited in the Dobbs decision to say that there isn't a constitutional right to an abortion. And so Biden is reminding voters of that relentlessly.

Biden and Kamala Harris are holding a rally in Virginia today, on Tuesday, while returns are coming in the New Hampshire primary, which of course they're skipping, but that entire rally is going to be focused on abortion rights. In addition, the campaign has released a bunch of new ads, including one featuring a woman in Texas who said she had to go out of state to receive her abortion care for a pregnancy that endangered her life. In that ad, she specifically blames Donald Trump. So these are all part of kind of the ways the campaign is going to try to make abortion front and center in the race here later this year.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, Joey Garrison covers the White House for USA Today. Thank you, Joey.

Joey Garrison:

Hey, thanks a lot.

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Taylor Wilson:

Social media is not doing enough to stop misinformation denying the existence and causes of climate change. That’s according to a review of climate-related conversations on social media platforms by the public interest research organization, Advance Democracy. Despite pledges from social media platforms to crack down, falsehoods and conspiracy theories, circulated with few warning labels or links to credible information in 2023 contributing to a surge in the number of posts denying climate change last year. The report was shared exclusively with USA TODAY. Nowhere was that surge more evident than on X, formerly Twitter, with the number of posts containing terms linked to climate change denial more than tripled for the second year in a row. Advance Democracy also saw a significant increase in posts that dismiss climate change as an exaggeration or hoax on Facebook and TikTok also failed to reign in falsehoods. But the report found that YouTube has improved. You can read more with a link in today’s show notes.

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Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio and if you’re on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The Excerpt podcast: Primary day in New Hampshire