President Joe Biden speaks Tuesday, April 20, 2021, at the White House in Washington, after former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.
Over 100 grassroots leaders and volunteers from New Hampshire launched a "Write-In Biden" campaign on Monday, a statewide effort aimed at encouraging voters to write in Joe Biden in this winter's New Hampshire primary.
“New Hampshire will once again have the first-in-the-nation primary this winter,” Kathy Sullivan, former New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair, said in a statement. “Writing in Joe Biden for President on the primary ballot is how New Hampshire voters can show the world our commitment to freedom, to standing up to the MAGA extremists, to keeping us safe and strong around the world, and to building an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top.”
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The campaign will stress the importance of voting for Biden in the New Hampshire primary, since his name will not appear on the Democratic ballot.
Biden did not file to have his name on the primary ballot by Friday's deadline, opting to skip a contest the state is holding in defiance of a revamped primary order that the White House has championed.
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Julie Chavez Rodriguez, manager of Biden's reelection campaign, wrote in a letter to New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Raymond Buckley that “while the president wishes to participate in the primary, he is obligated to comply" with party rules.
“The president looks forward to having his name on New Hampshire’s general election ballot as the nominee of the Democratic Party after officially securing the nomination at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, where he will tirelessly campaign to earn every single vote in the Granite State next November,” Rodriguez wrote.
Biden last year urged the Democratic National Committee to shake up the order of the 2024 primary, replacing Iowa's leadoff caucus with the South Carolina primary to better empower Black and other minority voters crucial to the party’s base. In February, the DNC approved a new 2024 calendar, beginning with South Carolina's primary on Feb. 3, followed three days later by New Hampshire and Nevada.
But New Hampshire has balked at the plan, arguing that it has traditionally held the nation's opening primary — a rule that Iowa only got around by having caucuses. Top New Hampshire Democrats say state law there mandates hosting the nation's first primary, and officials have vowed to have a primary prior to South Carolina's regardless of what the DNC says. No formal date for the New Hampshire primary has been set.
Biden isn't the first sitting president to forgo appearing on New Hampshire's primary ballot. In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson didn't file for the state's primary and still won via write-in, though Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy’s strong second-place finish in the state helped push Johnson to announce mere weeks later that he wouldn't seek reelection.
But without a strong write-in campaign, it's possible that Biden could lose the New Hampshire primary. Especially after Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips filed for the Democratic primary ballot on Friday.
Phillips could benefit from New Hampshire Democrats angry at Biden for diluting their state’s influence on the 2024 Democratic primary calendar, a change that state party chairman Ray Buckley has warned could create a “potential embarrassment” by “an insurgent candidate, serious or not.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
