MANCHESTER — Presidential candidates Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson took part in the first Democratic New Hampshire primary debate in the 2024 season Monday.
Phillips and Williamson have struggled to gain traction against President Joe Biden, despite the fact Biden hasn’t campaigned in person in the Granite State. Biden’s name isn’t on the ballot of the first-in-the-nation primary, which is not sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee.
Who are Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips?
Williamson is an author and speaker who gained fame as Oprah Winfrey’s “spiritual adviser.” She unsuccessfully ran for president in 2020, but gained notoriety for her distinctive focus on using energy and love to save the nation. Williamson appears to be using similar tactics this time around: at the debate, she called for the disruption of the “unholy alliance” between government and corporate power, a “recovery czar instead of a drug czar,” and a “Peace Academy” along with the military academy.
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Phillips is the representative for Minnesota’s Third Congressional District. He also describes himself as a businessman, having run his family’s distillery and helping to build the gelato brand Talenti. He has focused his whole campaign on New Hampshire, seeing an opening with a Biden-less ballot. He been vocal about being an alternative to Biden, who he said, “will lose to Donald Trump.” In his opening remarks, he said he was part of the “exhausted majority, disgusted with both parties,” and he would “win against either” Trump or Nikki Haley, two of the Republican candidates.
Voter guide: Dean Phillips on the issues
Voter guide: Marrianne Williamson on the issues
Which issues are candidates focused on in 2024?
Both candidates expressed their disappointment with the Democratic National Committee and Biden ignoring New Hampshire and themselves. “Candidate suppression is a form of voter suppression,” Williamson said. Phillips said a DNC letter calling the New Hampshire primary “meaningless” is “(one of) the most egregious affronts to democracy I’ve ever seen in my lifetime” and that “Democrats are sleepwalking into disaster” by throwing their support behind the current president.
The candidates agreed on many of the issues, employing slightly different plans. On economics, Williamson talked about her “economic bill of rights” which includes the right to a job, universal healthcare and tuition-free higher education.
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Phillips described his “American Dream Accounts,” in which every baby born in America would start their life with $1,000.
On their top priorities, Phillips cited economic despair, and Williamson called for cancelling the Willow Project, an oil drilling project in Alaska.
The candidates riffed when asked to name one Republican they admire. Phillips chose Liz Cheney because of how she spoke up against former President Donald Trump for his actions leading up to and during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, during which he was trapped with Cheney and several other congressional leaders.
“I do admire what Liz Cheney did standing up to Donald Trump, but none of us should be deceived. She voted with him 90, 99 percent of the time,” Williamson said.
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What are their chances?
Both Williamson and Phillips bemoaned the Democratic Party’s reactions to their candidacies. Williamson talked about the “invisibili-zation of her campaign,” while Phillips described Washington Democrats as treating him with “extraordinary hypocrisy and meanness.”
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Rep. Annie Kuster of New Hampshire are among prominent New Hampshire Democrats standing with Biden and helping to promote a write-in campaign for the state’s primary on his behalf. Nationally, Phillips and Williamson have been largely ignored; Florida’s Democratic Party, for example, has only submitted Biden’s name for the state’s primary ballot.
Even though his name is not on the ballot, an early January poll by Emerson College put Biden in the lead with 69%. Phillips was at 5%, and Williamson at 3%.
The room in Manchester where Phillips and Williamson spoke was largely filled with high school and college students, many of whom are not yet old enough to vote.
“Based on what I just saw after the debate, the interest in the ideas and the excitement is really exciting,” said Phillips of the students. “I think there are some eligible voters in there. You know what? They’re going to talk to their parents in front of the dining table. They’ll go to school, talk to their teachers.”
WILTON, N.H. (WHDH) – A woman died in a Wilton, New Hampshire, house fire Wednesday morning, according to the New Hampshire State Fire Marshal’s Office.
At 9:08 a.m., Wilton firefighters responded to Burns Hill Road after a caller said their home was filling up with smoke. When they arrived, a single-family home was on fire and they found out two people were still inside on the second floor.
A man and a woman were both taken out of the house by firefighters and taken to Elliott Hospital. The woman was pronounced dead and the man is in serious condition.
Officials have not released the name of the victim at this time.
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At this time, investigators are looking into the cause of the fire and are trying to determine if a power outage in the area played a factor. The fire is not currently considered suspicious.
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Diane Durgin, 67, is accused of shooting at a Black man who inadvertently drove to her property after a prearranged truck part sale, prosecutors said.
A New Hampshire woman is accused of violating the state’s Civil Rights Act four times after she allegedly shot at a man because he was Black, prosecutors said.
Diane Durgin, 67, of Weare, N.H. could face up to a $5,000 fine for each violation she is found to have committed, the office of New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella said in a press release Tuesday.
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Durgin is also charged with criminal threatening against a person with a deadly weapon and attempted first degree assault with a deadly weapon, Michael Garrity, a media representative for the New Hampshire Attorney General, said in an emailed statement to Boston.com.
Durgin had a final pre-trial conference last week, Garrity said.
In a civil complaint filed Tuesday, Durgin is accused of threatening physical force against the victim, the AG said. Prosecutors asked the court to issue a preliminary injunction barring Durgin from repeating her alleged behavior and from contacting the victim and his family.
During the morning hours of Oct. 20, 2024, the victim claims, he “mistakenly” drove to Durgin’s home after a prearranged purchase of a truck part with a seller online, prosecutors wrote as part of their request for an injunction.
When the man — whom prosecutors identified in court documents as X.G. — arrived, Durgin allegedly stepped out of her home and approached his car with a gun “holstered by her waist,” prosecutors wrote.
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Upon noticing that X.G. was Black, Durgin allegedly “removed her gun and pointed it at X.G.,” prosecutors said in the injunction request.
While X.G. explained that he was lost, Durgin called the victim a “Black mother[expletive],” and threatened to “kill him,” prosecutors allege.
As the victim attempted to drive away, Durgin allegedly took her gun and fired two shots at the fleeing man’s car, missing both times, the AG’s office said.
While on the phone with a dispatcher, Durgin allegedly said she shot the man’s car because the victim is Black, the AG said.
“The guy is Black. And he, he…he says he’s meeting someone here and I think he’s coming here to steal,” Durgin allegedly said.
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Police located X.G. and brought him to the Weare Police Department, stopping along the way at the correct seller’s home to complete the truck part purchase, prosecutors wrote in court documents.
To prove a violation of the New Hampshire Civil Rights Act, the AG must show that Durgin “interfered or attempted to interfere with the rights of the victim to engage in lawful activities by threatening to engage in or actually engage in physical force or violence, when such actual or threatening conduct was motivated by race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, or disability,” prosecutors said.
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