Four stories above the convention floor, tucked in the plush chairman’s suite lined with chocolates and white roses, Steve Duprey watched delegates milling below.
But he couldn’t sit upstairs for long. The Republican national committeeman had to take to the floor and vote in what was becoming a contentious debate over convention rules. Delegates were starting to yell and boo. Chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A” broke out.
Duprey and other New Hampshire delegates have worked for months to secure the state’s first-in-the-nation primary status. And on Monday, Republican officials adopted rules that maintain early nominating contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina during the 2020 election. The only concession is an 11-member study commission, whose recommendations would need a staggering 75 percent vote to pass.
The outcome wasn’t without strife. But with most of the focus on a controversial roll call vote pushed by anti-Donald Trump delegates, officials said less attention was paid to pulling New Hampshire’s coveted spot in the presidential voting calendar.
“We were pretty nervous,” Duprey said hours later, sitting in the same suite, now empty.
In reality, most of the groundwork, vote counting and lobbying had been done long before Monday. While reports of “primary in jeopardy” tend to surface during the convention, the job of protecting the state’s early status is full-time.
“It comes to a vote every four years, and it’s about four years of work between votes to make sure everyone is okay,” said Tom Rath, a delegate from Concord and former Republican national committeeman. “You can never, ever think it’s set.”
The job falls largely to the head of the state Republican Party, currently Jennifer Horn, and the state’s elected committeeman and committeewoman, Duprey and Juliana Bergeron. And it involves wooing RNC members, maintaining a good relationship with RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and making sure a New Hampshire representative is always on the rules committee.
“It’s constant,” said Duprey, who was recently elected to another four-year term as national committeeman. “We build support all the time.”
Last winter, Duprey brought in more than a dozen RNC members for a four-day primary tour, his third such event. Duprey packed them – and boxed lunches – into vans and shuttled them between campaign events in the frigid winter weather, giving the members from Arizona to North Dakota a taste of the retail politicking for which the primary is known.
Bergeron said she and other delegates from early voting states dialed up other members ahead of time. Each person took a few states.
Among the biggest primary boosters this year were Republican presidential candidates themselves – including Trump – who pledged their support for New Hampshire’s early status on camera. Duprey sent those video clips to all RNC rules committee members last week, “just to remind them where their candidate stood,” he said.
When the rules committee met last week, its members eventually decided against major changes to early voting.
Proposals floated this year would have would set up a rotating primary or paired early states and their neighbors together on a single contest date.
Another would have rewarded states that close their primaries and caucuses to independent voters. New Hampshire would have been affected because voters can register Republican just for the primary and change back to independent status immediately after casting a ballot.
A last-ditch effort Monday to change the presidential nominating rules ultimately fizzled.
“It didn’t come up, and I think that is due to the advance work we all did, but also because there were these rumblings of the never-Trump movement,” Bergeron said.
The battle may be won this week, but many more loom in the future. The challenge of the moment is getting a New Hampshire member appointed to the new study commission, Duprey said.
Republicans’ effort to reduce New Hampshire and other early states’ influence in the presidential nominating process are unlikely to wane. Opponents argue the states wield too much power.
“Everybody should be given a chance to be first in the nation,” said Paul deFabo, an alternate Pennsylvania delegate. “Other states should get a chance.”
Duprey pitches the state primary as a process that toughens up presidential candidates, who are forced to confront New Hampshire voters face-to-face on a host of issues. And voters are engaged. New Hampshire led the country in voter turnout during the February primary, according to the Union Leader, at 52.4 percent.
“A lot of these candidates have been cocooned. It reconnects them with the problems the average person has,” Duprey said. “If they can’t deal with a cranky Yankee telling them their answer is B.S. . . . I don’t want them dealing with Putin. It’s a test.”
The idea of retail politicking was tested this year. Both Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders favored mega-rallies over small-town diner stops, and both trounced the competition in the New Hampshire primary.
Rath brushed it off. “Sometimes you are popular,” he said of Trump and Sanders. “One result doesn’t skew it.”
It looks like the efforts have paid off to some degree.
David Stall, a Texas delegate, says he’s fine with small states keeping the early nominating contests.
“I don’t have an issue with it,” he said. “It’s a good sounding board.”