Democrats launch write-in campaign for Biden in N.H.

Top New Hampshire Democrats on Monday launched a write-in campaign for President Joe Biden, days after the president passed on putting his name on the primary ballot there.

The effort is designed to prevent Biden from suffering an embarrassment in what’s traditionally been the first primary state, after Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota last week announced in Concord that he would challenge Biden for the nomination.

The write-in campaign is being spearheaded by veteran Democratic operatives and politicians including Jim Demers and Kathy Sullivan, a former state Democratic Party chair. And it’s backed by a who’s who of other top New Hampshire Democrats — including every Democratic state senator, both Democrats running for governor and former Reps. Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter. The group filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission under the name “Granite State Write-In.”

“The fate of our democracy itself hangs in the balance in the 2024 election,” the website for the effort reads. “That starts with supporting Joe Biden in New Hampshire’s 2024 First in the Nation primary.”

The Biden campaign and the state Democratic Party are not involved in the campaign. The website doesn't list the members of the state’s all-Democratic federal delegation — Reps. Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas, and Sens. Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen — but Kuster said on social media that she supports the effort.

The write-in campaign is a circumstance of Biden’s own making after the president moved to strip New Hampshire of its prized first primary. He and the Democratic National Committee elevated South Carolina, a more diverse state that helped propel Biden to the nomination in 2020, to the top spot on the 2024 calendar instead.

But New Hampshire law requires the state to hold its primary before any similar contest, and Republicans who control state government and the secretary of state who sets the primary date refused to bend to the DNC.

The result was a monthslong standoff between national and state Democrats that culminated last week in Biden declining to put his name on the primary ballot in New Hampshire, which is expected to hold an unsanctioned contest.

Other Democrats are now seizing on the opening Biden created in New Hampshire to elevate their longshot bids. The latest: Phillips, who pledged to restore the state’s lead-off status as he launched his primary challenge to Biden on Friday in Concord. He’s being helped by none other than Shaheen’s husband, Bill Shaheen.

New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan said he’s “strongly” recommending that local election officials bring in “additional help” for processing a potentially large number of write-ins.

“It’s going to be some extra work,” Scanlan recently told reporters at Saint Anselm College. “But I fully expect the towns are going to be able to get the volunteers and resources they need to help.”

Scanlan said it’s a “mistake” that Biden is passing on New Hampshire’s primary. Despite the threat of the DNC not seating the state’s delegates, Scanlan said he expects underdog candidates who did file for the ballot — including Phillips and self-help guru Marianne Williamson — to “campaign here, just to get the media attention.”