The Granite State is full of finicky voters accustomed to intense retail politics, and the president is in no shape to participate in any of that.
The national Democratic Party has put itself into a pickle in New Hampshire. The state, which is so jealous of its zeitgeist-setting “first in the nation” status in presidential primaries that it has a law on the books requiring the state to forever be first, is enraged at Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee for messing with the 2024 Democratic-primary calendar and moving South Carolina to the pole position instead. The state is threatening to simply remove Biden’s name from the ballot in New Hampshire should the DNC not back down from its promotion of South Carolina instead. Given that both the legislature and the governorship are controlled by Republicans, the Democrats will either need to back down and restore New Hampshire to its primacy or suffer the indignity of watching Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Marianne Williamson vie for the Granite State’s delegates.
My prediction is that Biden’s campaign will toss the New Hampshire Democratic Party (which is understandably howling about this) overboard and move on. At least, that would certainly be the smart move because it beats the devastating and frightfully possible alternative: a weak showing in the nation’s first primary.
My take on this is predictably cynical, driven by political calculation. Some backstory is necessary here. In anticipation of Biden’s reelection campaign in 2024, the Democratic National Committee — securely in Biden’s corner, which is not particularly scandalous given his incumbency — moved the South Carolina Democratic primary to the front of the race calendar. The acknowledged reason for this: South Carolina, with its large and loyal African-American primary-voting population, handed the nomination to Biden in 2020 after his terrible showings in both Iowa and New Hampshire, so why not lead with a strong showing? Biden does not think of himself as Jimmy Carter, subject to valid primary reconsideration. (He certainly has a colorable argument given the Democrats’ 2022 overperformance.)
The unacknowledged reason for moving New Hampshire into the shadows, and even ducking it altogether? New Hampshire is a state full of finicky voters accustomed to intense retail politics from candidates. Joe Biden is simply in no mental or physical shape to participate in any of that, and he never will be again. Getting dropped from the New Hampshire ballot because of a “technicality” provides him with a ready-made excuse to offer the American public (“It’s just this silly law!”). It also spares him the embarrassment of pulling some anemic number, like 60 percent of the vote, in a miniature replay of 1968.
More than anything else, however, the decision allows him to delay any campaigning well into the summer and the end of convention season. By that point, the stage-management of Biden’s unscripted public appearances — whether they be debates, town halls, meet and greets with voters, etc. — will become a surprisingly under-discussed weak spot for a candidate whom only 23 percent of Democrats even want to see run for president again. And we all know why that is.