New Hampshire lawmakers continue to spar with the White House about plans for the 2024 presidential primary, which defies the state law requiring it to hold the first primary contest in the country.
Holding the first-in-the-nation primary since 1920, New Hampshire law declares the secretary of state sets the presidential primary at least seven days ahead of any other state’s primary.
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The Democratic National Committee created a path to reshape its primary calendar in December 2022, proposing that South Carolina host the first 2024 presidential primary on Feb. 3, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada.
A DNC panel approved a presidential primary calendar in February that moved South Carolina to the first nominating state, breaking away from New Hampshire’s laws declaring the state holds the first primary. The plan surpasses Iowa, which also has traditionally been the first major electoral event of presidential caucuses and primaries.
New Hampshire and Nevada would jointly hold their states’ primaries on Feb. 6, three days after South Carolina leads the way.
“If South Carolina is scheduled as the first primary, it would be at least seven days before that,” New Hampshire Secretary of State Dave Scanlan told Fox News.
Because of the altered calendar, there is a chance that Biden will not appear on the ballot in New Hampshire. The president would likely avoid the contest if the Granite State moves its primary to align with state law, defying the DNC and creating an unsanctioned contest.
If Biden decides to forgo the contest in favor of honoring the DNC, and the rules his team pushed it to adopt, he would leave a lane open for challengers Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to appear on the ballot and scoop up delegates for themselves.
Top lawmakers in New Hampshire, including Ray Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, and Chris Ager, New Hampshire Republican Party chairman, have been fighting to maintain the 100-year tradition of keeping the state at the forefront of the nation’s nominating system.
Buckley said he and others “fear that this decision by the DNC will put our four electoral votes in jeopardy,” in a statement earlier this year.
Buckley said he’s confident New Hampshire will retain its first-in-the-nation status, and any report that South Carolina will be ahead in position is “simply false,” in an interview with WMUR-TV in April.
The top Democrat commented on the concerns that candidates will be deterred from joining the race due to the newly proposed sanctions, saying that is a conservation more applicable to the 2028 election cycle, stressing the state will hold its status in the following election.
The GOP national committeeman emphasized New Hampshire’s capabilities to hold the first primary, saying the U.S. is better off because of it.
“We’re trying to continue to put pressure on the president and the DNC to reconsider what they’ve done,” Ager said. “We remind them whenever we can that President Biden came in fifth here.”
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Both Buckley and Ager have said they have been in communication with Biden and the DNC to revise their proposed changes to the primary calendar, noting there is still time to revisit the plan.
“This is a battleground state, and our state House of Representatives right now is almost equally divided between Republicans and Democrats,” Scanlan said. “It’s polarized. And we have some great debates based on political ideology, but I can tell you that there is one issue where the state is united — both Republicans and Democrats — and that is the first in the nation status of the New Hampshire primary.”
