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Bulletin
New Hampshire has a strangely poor record in identifying the most powerful Democratic presidential candidates.
By David Leonhardt
The Democratic Party is engaged in a heated debate over the order of its presidential primaries, as explained in a Times magazine article by Ross Barkan.
President Biden and other more sensible Democrats need South Carolina passed first next year. New Hampshire state officials insist on maintaining their prestige of being the first in the country and say they will move their number one before South Carolina. The final results remain uncertain.
Having the nation’s first number one actually brings wonderful benefits to a state. Presidential candidates make repeated visits. The same goes for political organizers and members of the media, who fill hotels and restaurants. Voters in a single state can shape the national discourse. I wonder if New Hampshire is fighting so hard for a privilege it has had since the 1950s.
But also an awkward question that New Hampshire officials have been unable to offer a convincing answer: How did the rest of the country enjoy the state’s special status?
New Hampshire’s critics point to the many tactics in which it doesn’t see itself as the rest of America. It is one of the whitest, wealthiest and most knowledgeable states in the country. A single town of more than 125,000 inhabitants.
New Hampshire advocates counter that its privacy allows for purer editing of the policy. Candidates speak directly to the electorate in restaurants and town halls, rather than competing primarily through advertisements. As in ancient Greece or the early United States, citizens can take the measure of the other people they need to constitute them. I covered the New Hampshire primary, and I also found it lovely.
The results, however, are less impressive. There is no evidence that the New Hampshire electorate has a knack for electing presidents that other Americans lack. By contrast, the state’s record is worse than average, at least on the Democratic side:
New Hampshire has voted against each of the last 3 Democratic presidents in their ultimately victorious nomination campaigns: Biden (who finished fifth!) In 2020, Barack Obama in 2008 and Bill Clinton in 1992. Not since Jimmy Carter, almost 50 years ago, the eventual Democratic president won the state.
No two-term Democratic presidency has begun with a victory in New Hampshire. In 1992, Clinton passed off his second place as a victory, calling himself “the child of return,” but won fewer than 25 of the vote.
The clearest trend is that New Hampshire prefers grassroots Democrats, regardless of their ideology or national appeal. Every primary candidate from Massachusetts or neighboring Vermont has run in the past 35 years, that candidate has won New Hampshire: Bernie Sanders in 2020 and 2016, John Kerry in 2004, Paul Tsongas in 1992 and Michael Dukakis in 1988.
The closest thing to a really lengthy counterargument from New Hampshire officials is that their state is an indecisive state, unlike South Carolina, which is solidly Republican. If New Hampshire comes first (as state law dictates) and Biden skips the number one state (as his aides have said), the number one crusade would be full of complaints against him from the two Republican candidates vying for the 2024 nomination and the fringe of Biden-challenging Democrats like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Marianne Williamson.
“The truth is, New Hampshire will remain number one in the country,” said Ray Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, “and the only question is whether or not the president is going to put his call on the ballot.
If he isn’t on the ballot, Biden’s complaint could theoretically damage his symbol in the state and hurt his chances when New Hampshire votes next November in the general election. In a very close national election, New Hampshire may even discover the final electoral college results. But this situation is distant. A sitting president is the subject of strong complaints in the other party’s open primaries, and yet most sitting presidents are re-elected.
Ultimately, the primary beneficiary of New Hampshire’s number one prestige is New Hampshire, which is why the state is fighting so hard to maintain it. right to be first. “
Related: Biden has his own self-interested motives in lobbying for South Carolina, Ross says. The state, home to many working-class black voters, propelled Biden to the bottom of the Democratic cadre in 2020 after his losses in New Hampshire and Iowa.
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Thank you for spending the morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. – David
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David Leonhardt writes The Morning, the Times’ flagship daily newsletter. In the past he served as an opinion columnist, Washington bureau chief, co-host of the podcast “The Argument,” founding editor of The Upshot section, and editor of The Times Magazine. In 2011, he won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. More information about David Leonhardt
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