New Hampshire defies Biden, sets Jan. 23 primary date

New Hampshire announced Wednesday that it will hold its Republican and Democratic presidential primaries on Jan. 23 — officially rejecting the demands of the Democratic National Committee and President Biden to forgo its first-in-the-nation status.

New Hampshire has been the first state to hold a primary election in every cycle since 1920 and state law requires it to stage the contest at least one week before any other.

However, the DNC approved a new calendar this past February under which South Carolina would hold the first primary on Feb. 3, 2024, New Hampshire and Nevada would follow three days later, Georgia would go one week after that, and Michigan would stage its primary two weeks later, on Feb. 27.

The new calendar was created in response to demands by liberal activists for the DNC to hold early voting contests in states with more diverse populations than Iowa and New Hampshire.

Iowa — which will hold its Republican caucuses on Jan. 15 — will still hold in-person Democratic caucuses on that day on conduct party business, but allow mail-in voting for candidates through March 5, per a compromise with the DNC.

New Hampshire officials are in no such conciliatory mood.

“Using racial diversity as a cudgel in an attempt to rearrange the presidential nominating calendar is an ugly precedent,” state Secretary of State Bill Scanlan told reporters in Concord Wednesday. “At what point does a state become too old or too wealthy, or too educated or too religious to hold an early primary?”

Biden finished an embarrassing fifth in the 2020 New Hampshire primary and did not file to place his name on the ballot this time around, in accordance with the DNC’s guidelines.

Insurgent challenger Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) plans to campaign heavily in New Hampshire in an attempt to pull off a shocking upset over Biden. In 1968, a strong second-place performance by Sen. Gene McCarthy (D-Minn.) triggered a Democratic free-for-all that led to President Lyndon Johnson not seeking re-election.

“At stake is who gets to determine the nominee of the party: the elites on a national party committee by controlling the nominating calendar or the voters,” Scanlan said. “New Hampshire believes the voters of each state should decide who they prefer as the nominee to be president, not power brokers in Washington, DC.”

As a result of New Hampshire’s defiance, the DNC is likely to strip the state of its 33 delegates to next year’s nominating convention in Chicago.

An Emerson College/WHDH poll released Wednesday found 44% of likely Democratic primary voters undecided about who they would support. Of the remainder, 27% said they would write in Biden, 15% said they would support Phillips, 10% said they would support self-help author Marianne Williamson and 5% said they would support “someone else.”

“As Biden is not officially on the ballot in New Hampshire, Democratic Primary voters appear to be confused on which candidate to support and how to vote for them,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling.

The poll also found Biden defeating former President Donald Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head New Hampshire matchup, 47% to 42%. When given a four-way ballot test that includes third-party candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, Biden leads Trump 40% to 37%, with RFK Jr. garnering 8% support and West getting 1% support.