It’s been 433 days since former President Donald Trump formally kicked off his 2024 presidential campaign and began America’s long march to the First in the Nation presidential primary.
Since November 16, 2022, when Trump made his Mar-a-Lago announcement, many things have happened to influence the campaign’s first primary election, including the Democratic National Committee’s attempt to kill it entirely. It was President Joe Biden’s plan to push South Carolina to the front of the line, but it didn’t work because of bipartisan support in the Granite State for the state’s First in the Nation primary.
“The DNC didn’t give us this primary, and they can’t take it away,” Gov. Chris Sununu said at the time.
And it was almost exactly one year ago when a UNH Survey Center poll reported that Gov. Ron DeSantis had a 43-30 percent lead over Trump in the Granite State, with Nikki Haley at 8 percent.
Today, DeSantis is out of the race, Haley is at 37 percent, and Trump appears poised to break the 50 percent barrier. If that happens, it will be difficult for Haley supporters to defend her decision to stay in the race.
One year ago, speculation was rampant that Sununu might make a White House run of his own, an idea he toyed with until early June before pulling the plug. His job, Sununu said, was to stop Trump from being the GOP nominee.
“If [Trump] is the nominee, Republicans will lose again,” Sununu wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post. “Just as we did in 2018, 2020, and 2022. This is indisputable, and I am not willing to let it happen without a fight.”
Sununu is waging that fight as a surrogate for Haley, who saw her Granite State support soar from three percent on September 15, 2023, in the RealClearPolitcs average to 25 percent by Christmas and 37 percent today. Many political observers give Sununu credit for Haley’s recent growth in support, even as her campaign has suffered missteps like Haley’s inartful answer to a question about the cause of the Civil War or her decision not to participate in the WMUR debate.
Sununu will be campaigning with Haley on primary day as she visits polling places and makes her final pitch.
Meanwhile, former state Sen. Chuck Morse has invited the press and supporters to join him early Tuesday morning when he “kicks off New Hampshire’s 2024 First In The Nation Primary and casting his ballot for President Donald J. Trump.”
Morse, who is seeking the GOP nomination for governor, endorsed Trump weeks ago, a sign he believes Trump will be an important force in state politics in 2024. And given the current RCP polling average shows Trump at 55 percent and holding an 18-point lead, he has a strong case.
Former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who’s also seeking the GOP nomination for governor, has not endorsed in the presidential primary.
As Trump’s polling lead has widened, there’s been more attention turned to the messy Democratic contest. In a typical year, an incumbent president seeking reelection would mean a sleepy primary contest with the current White House occupant facing nothing more than token opposition. In 2020, incumbent Republican Donald Trump, facing nuisance candidate (and former Massachusetts governor) Bill Weld, got nearly 130,000 votes and won 86 percent of the total.
This year, because Joe Biden tried to kill the Democrats’ First in the Nation primary, he won’t allow his name to appear on the ballot. Then again, Biden hasn’t had much luck when appearing on the New Hampshire ballot.
In 2020, Biden won just 8 percent of the vote, putting him in fifth place.
In 2008, Biden dropped out five days before the primary after his abysmal performance in the Iowa caucuses. He got 0.22 percent of the vote in the Granite State primary.
In 1987 (yes, he’s been running for president that long), he dropped out of the race after being caught plagiarizing a speech by U.K. Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. He didn’t make it to New Hampshire that year, either.
This year, Biden is the most unpopular president among New Hampshire voters in the modern era. In the new Marist poll, just 38 percent of Granite Staters approve of the job he’s doing, while 56 percent disapprove. “New Hampshire residents are more than twice as likely to strongly disapprove (44 percent) of Biden’s job performance than strongly approve (19 percent),” Marist adds.
Biden hasn’t set foot in New Hampshire since his decision to try to blow up the primary, and his name won’t appear on the ballot. Now, a ragtag group of Democrats is trying to save him from a potentially debilitating embarrassment by mounting a write-in candidacy for him.
The latest UNH poll shows support for the Biden write-in is slipping, and it’s close to just 60 percent of his own party in a race against an unknown congressman from Minnesota, Rep. Dean Phillips (D).
What is the percentage that looks like a big win for Biden, as opposed to an LBJ-style close call? (President Lyndon Johnson got 48 percent in 1968 against Sen. Eugene McCarthy’s 42 percent).
And what happens if Donald Trump, in a hotly contested race, wins a higher percentage of the vote than Biden, facing token opposition?
Then again, what happens if, regardless of Haley’s performance, Trump gets 50 percent or more of the vote?
These are the questions Granite Staters — and the world of American politics — want to see answered Tuesday night.
