From a highly publicized letter to the Democratic National Committee to a high-profile national TV appearance on a well-watched morning show, top New Hampshire Democrats are upping the ante as they fight to save the state’s cherished century-old first-in-the-nation-primary in the race for the White House.
In a letter to DNC chair Jaime Harrison, longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley argued that the national party committee was placing an “undue burden” on New Hampshire Democrats by insisting they change the date of their primary and alter state laws to broaden voter access in order to remain one of the early voting states in the Democrats’ presidential nominating calendar.
Buckley said that the DNC’s “arbitrary and unfair requirements” on New Hampshire – which face opposition from the GOP controlled state government – “will all but ensure its erasure from the Democrats’ early primary schedule.”
Hours after the release of Buckley’s letter, which grabbed national attention in Politico’s Playbook, a must-read tip sheet in the political world – Democratic U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan – who’ve called the DNC’s plan “tremendously disappointing” and “deeply misguided” – provided the second half of the one-two punch. The two senators made the case for the Granite State in an appearance Wednesday morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” a cable news program well-watched by Democrats across the country.
Last week Shaheen, Hassan, and U.S. Reps. Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas, the four members of the state’s all Democrat congressional delegation, also landed in the national political spotlight with an op-ed in the Boston Globe that grabbed plenty of pickup. Plus, the state party has brought on board longtime Democratic strategist and communicator Lis Smith – a veteran of numerous presidential campaigns – to help advise them as they try to save their “first in the nation” presidential primary status.
All this comes in the wake of a move earlier this month by the DNC to revamp the top of the 2024 presidential nominating calendar. The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee overwhelmingly approved a proposal from President Joe Biden that moves South Carolina to the lead off position in the Democrats’ primary calendar, on Feb. 3, 2024, with New Hampshire and Nevada holding primaries three days later, followed by Georgia and Michigan.
It’s a move aimed at making the lead-off contest more representative of a party that’s become much more diverse in recent decades. Republicans countered that it’s a move to boost the president’s standing ahead of a likely 2024 re-election campaign.
Biden’s proposal, which the full DNC membership is expected to pass at their winter meeting in early February in Philadelphia, is a dramatic shift from the current calendar, which has seen Iowa and New Hampshire for half a century hold the first two lead-off contests in both the Democratic and Republican Party schedules. For years, plenty of Democrats have knocked Iowa and New Hampshire as being too white with few major urban areas. Nevada and South Carolina — which currently vote third and fourth in the calendar — are much more diverse than either Iowa or New Hampshire.
Iowa would be dropped from the top of the Democrats’ schedule, and New Hampshire would lose its position – enshrined in state law – as the first presidential primary state. The GOP is making no changes to their current lineup of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada leading off their nominating calendar.
The DNC is giving the five early voting states in its new calendar until early next month to show that they are moving towards meeting the national party’s new rules — or else they would forfeit their early slots in the schedule.
The changes in New Hampshire would have to be approved by the Republican controlled legislature and GOP Gov. Chris Sununu, which is a political moonshot at best. The governor called the DNC proposal “dead on arrival” and Republican state Senate president Jeb Bradley reiterated to the Monitor that it’s “not happening. Not happening at all.”
Buckley in his letter to the DNC argues that New Hampshire does “not have any option but to be in non-compliance.”
The chair warned that the move by the DNC hurt Democrats in New Hampshire by pushing away independent voters – voters who are not registered with either party make up roughly 40% of the electorate in the key general election battleground state.
“Democrats will deliver a self-inflicted blow that Republicans will use to court voters over the next two years,” he said.
Shaheen, in her national TV appearance with Hassan, made a similiar point.
“We have a Republican legislature and a Republican governor, and they’re already attacking Democrats and the DNC for the effort to move the New Hampshire primary,” she said.
Hassan, who just won reelection, agreed.
“At the end of the day, this is about making sure that when New Hampshire has its primary, Democrats are on the playing field in a very purple state that has four very important electoral votes,” she said.
Buckley said New Hampshire Democrats agree with the DNC “that we must honor the diversity of the Democratic Party and center more diverse voices – specifically Black and Latino voters – in the process.”
But he said the Granite State didn’t have to lose its leadoff spot to achieve that goal.
“We are confident that the DNC’s proposal could have satisfied two important objectives: elevating the importance of Black voters and retaining New Hampshire’s status as the first in the nation primary, which would safeguard a battleground state for Democrats and maintain an important process for our country,” he said. “These did not have to be mutually exclusive.”
While he said that the New Hampshire Democrats “fully supports expanding access to voting,” he noted that none of the other proposed early voting or carve-out states in the calendar are being asked to change their voting laws.
Buckley’s letter concludes by saying New Hampshire Democrats hope to work with the DNC to “find a solution that honors the spirit of President Biden’s vision for a diverse, thoughtful Democratic process.”
Democrats involved in the push by the state party and the delegation say that more efforts are in the works ahead of the Jan. 5 deadline by the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws committee for the carve-out states to comply, and the early February vote by the entire DNC membership.
He says it’s far from the top of his mind, but Gov. Sununu has pointedly and repeatedly not ruled out a run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
And the popular governor – who last month was easily re-elected to a fourth two-year term steering New Hampshire and who’s raised his national profile in recent months with numerous Sunday talk show and national cable news interviews – is stoking more speculation by launching a Facebook and Instagram ad in Iowa and South Carolina, the first and third states to vote in the Republican Party’s presidential nominating calendar.
In the ad, which was put together by Friends of Chris Sununu, the governor’s campaign committee, Sununu says that “if we’re going to inspire the next generation, we need to leave the negativity behind.”
The cost of the ad was very modest – less than $1,000 was spent – but it grabbed some national attention with a mention Wednesday morning in Politico’s Playbook.
Sununu, asked last month by this reporter about a potential 2024 presidential bid, said “I don’t rule anything out, any time.”
But he quickly emphasized that “my priority is New Hampshire, is getting stuff for the state.”
In an interview Tuesday with Fox Business, the governor reiterated that “we’re having conversations, but right now my focus is on New Hampshire.”