President Biden could make history during the 2024 presidential cycle, when he may become the first incumbent White House candidate to ever lose a party primary in New Hampshire — and it probably won’t make a bit of difference, according to one historian.
With the Granite State and the Democratic National Committee on a political collision course of the liberals’ making, the president’s name may remain off the New Hampshire Democratic primary ballot entirely, effectively handing victory to either Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Marianne Williamson.
In setting this cycle’s primary schedule last February, the DNC and Biden, surely noting the president’s past campaign had turned itself around in South Carolina, sought to shake up the state-by-state voting order and put the Palmetto State ahead of New Hampshire.
South Carolina is more representative of the broader Democratic voting base, with more large cities and people of color than the sparsely populated New England state which normally leads the way, according to party leaders.
There’s just one problem: the law in New Hampshire.
“The presidential primary election shall be held on the second Tuesday in March or on a date selected by the secretary of state which is (seven) days or more immediately preceding the date on which any other state shall hold a similar election, whichever is earlier,” New Hampshire state law dictates.
Biden actually already made history there, in 2020, when he became the first person to win the presidency despite a poor fifth-place performance in the first-in-the-nation primary state’s contest. No president had done worse than second before that.
South Carolina, DNC Chair Jaime Harrison has said, “has been in your early state window now for almost two decades. And if you look at the other early state parties or states during that time — you look at Iowa and New Hampshire and Nevada — South Carolina has been the best indicator.”
That may be so, but New Hampshire isn’t going to be able to comply with the national party’s wishes, according to the state’s Republican Secretary of State, Dave Scanlan.
“If South Carolina is scheduled as the first primary, (ours) would be at least seven days before that,” Scanlan told Fox News last week.
Republican Gov. Chris Sununu has scoffed at the idea of changing the law and conservatives in control of both chambers of the state Legislature have made no move to take up any change.
Ray Buckley, Chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, has said he suspects that Biden will simply not put his name on the ballot in the Granite State, but that the state would hold a primary one way or the other.
If it seems like a potentially costly yet entirely avoidable political error, Rutgers University presidential historian David Greenberg says the electoral-kerfuffle won’t matter all that much in the end.
“I don’t think that skipping New Hampshire is an unforced error — or an error at all — on Biden’s part,” Greenberg told the Herald. “Let’s say Kennedy wins. Why would it matter? Well, maybe he picks up some delegates. But if the DNC has decided that New Hampshire can’t go first, then it may choose not to honor those delegates at the convention. Or those delegates may get to Chicago and join the Biden bandwagon. Biden is still going to wind up with 95%+ of the delegates.”
There is precedent, Greenberg said, that shows the states that don’t comply also don’t end up making an electoral difference elsewhere. Voters are not known for having long memories.
“Remember in 2008 when Hillary (Clinton) won Michigan and Florida? The media ignored it because they were operating against party rules and (former President Barack) Obama didn’t compete there,” Greenberg said.
If Biden can win in South Carolina, and people understand what happened in New Hampshire, the Granite State results simply won’t change the course of Biden’s campaign, Greenberg said.
“Any bad press Biden gets will pass as soon as he wins South Carolina. Remember in 2020, Biden finished fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire. He got some negative media coverage, but it passed,” he said. “So I see no downside. It’ll be a one-day story, and a story, if responsibly reported, that will note that Biden didn’t compete.”
