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.

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.

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.

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.”