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Republican presidential candidate John Castro has no campaign office in New Hampshire, no campaign staff, has met with no voters in the first-in-the-nation primary, and his campaign fund boasts a whopping $670.

The tax-lawyer-turned-social-media-political-activist claims former President Donald Trump is costing him votes and donations, and he is suing the New Hampshire Secretary of State to keep Trump off the ballot. 

Castro brought his low-budget road show to the United States District Court in Concord on Friday to argue before Judge Joseph Lapante that he has the legal standing to engage in the lawsuit by virtue of being a presidential candidate.

But Trump’s lawyers said Castro’s presidential campaign was a stunt meant to create cover for the lawsuit. After Friday’s evidentiary hearing, Trump attorney Jonathan Shaw told NHJournal that Castro’s presidential campaign isn’t real, and his lawsuit ought to be dismissed.

“I think the evidence is clear he has no campaign. What he has is a desire to manufacture standing. He has a theory that by pretending to be a political contender, he has standing. And he’s wrong,” said Jonathan Shaw, one of the Trump’s lawyers.

The Trump campaign, the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s Office, and the New Hampshire Republican Party all oppose Castro’s lawsuit. 

Castro is behind 27 federal lawsuits aimed at Trump, arguing the former president should be barred from office under the 14th Amendment. Castro argued Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, were akin to partaking in an insurrection, and he ought to be barred from holding office under the Constitution.

Castro claimed that because he is a presidential candidate who paid the $1,000 fee to the New Hampshire secretary of state to file his nomination, he stands to lose if Trump is allowed to run. However, state GOP attorney Bryant Gould said during the hearing that Castro presented no evidence of any Trump voter or donor who would switch to back him if Trump were out of the race.

“That’s the end of the game for you,” Gould said.

Under questioning on the stand, Castro admitted to LaPlante that his presidential campaign was not about winning but all about stopping Trump.

“One might look at your campaign and say your main goal is to establish the impermissibility of the Trump campaign, isn’t that right,” LaPlante asked,

“Yes,” Castro agreed.

Castro’s active social media feed includes tweets going back to 2021, in which he vows to run for president so that he will have legal standing. Standing is the legal principle that people must have good reason to bring a lawsuit, essentially that they have to have a dog in any particular fight. A person with standing can prove they are being harmed in some way.

Brendan O’Donnell, the lawyer for the secretary of state, told LaPlante during the hearing that Castro has no proof he is harmed by Trump’s campaign. There is no proof to his theory that any Trump voters or donors will switch to backing Castro.

“All we have is speculation,” O’Donnell said.

Rick Lehmann, another lawyer representing Trump, told LaPlante that Castro’s Potemkin campaign is an effort to manufacture standing. Castro, the tax lawyer, isn’t harmed by Trump’s candidacy, but Castro, the GOP candidate, is harmed because Trump takes away votes and donations under the theory. 

“He thinks he’s figured out how to pick the lock,” Lehmann told LaPlante.

At the end of Friday’s hearing, LaPlante said he will have a ruling this week to decide if Castro’s lawsuit can proceed. If LaPlante agrees with Castro, that could mean an injunction against the secretary of state prohibiting Trump’s candidacy. Trump is due in New Hampshire on Monday. He has not yet filed his nomination for the primary.

Outside the courthouse, Castro said he was engaging in what he called “lawfare” to keep Trump off the ballot in key swing states and push his candidacy forward. In the coming days, Castro plans to meet with voters, hire staff, and even campaign for the nomination.

The right time to launch will be once Trump gets kicked off the ballot in a state where he is suing, Castro said. That would cause global headlines for Castro’s run.

“Once that happens, it will really open up the campaign,” Castor said.

Castro said he was emulating Trump, leveraging the lawsuits to get free media attention for himself and his campaign.

“I didn’t get to where I’m at in life by burning money. I’m very calculating about how I do things,” Castro said.

Castro claims he is self-funding the camping with revenue generated by his tax law firm, and he has been tied up meeting tax deadlines for his business and has been unable to stump. 

The 27 federal lawsuits are Castro’s main campaign expense, he said during the hearing. He said the campaign had paid all of the federal filing fees to bring the complaints. Each lawsuit has cost his campaign $402 to file, meaning Castro’s presidential campaign has forked up at least $10,000 just to bring all 27 lawsuits. 

It also came out during the hearing that Castro originally planned to self-fund his campaign with a $20 million loan. Castro believed he would be getting a $180 million investment for his AI tax software and planned to use stock in the next company to fund his presidential ambitions. That deal did not work out, and he has been running on a tighter budget since.  

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is running hard into the New Hampshire GOP presidential primary, saying he will compete in the First-in-the-Nation state while also running an all-out campaign in Iowa.

“We’re all-in on all the early states,” DeSantis said Thursday.

And, the Florida governor demonstrated he is also all-in when it comes to taking on Trump directly, hammering the former president over his praise for Hezbollah in the wake of attacks on Israel.

 DeSantis took shots at Trump’s criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and praise for the terrorist group Hezbollah —  in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attack. 

“Now is not the time to do what Donald Trump did by attacking Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, attacking Israel’s defense minister, saying that somehow Hezbollah were very smart. Now’s not the time to air personal grievances about an Israeli prime minister; now’s the time to support their right to defend themselves to the hilt,” DeSantis told reporters Thursday.

And, DeSantis added, in a time of international crisis, he is ready to lead — unlike President Joe Biden. “You’ve got to take that 2 a.m. phone call; you can’t be sleeping like this president did,” he said.

Biden’s administration is mistaken in thinking it can deal with Iran, which has been using Hamas and Hezbollah as proxies to wage war on Israel, DeSantis said. America needs to support Israel’s efforts to eliminate Hamas, starting by cutting funds for Iran.

“(Israel) needs to uproot and eliminate the entire Hamas network and Hamas members,” he said.

Hundreds of supporters and dozens of media members packed into Secretary of State David Scanlan’s office to watch DeSantis file his nomination papers and gladhand with State House staff afterward. 

DeSantis sat with New Hampshire reporters to make his case for the nomination after filing. In a crowded Republican field, DeSantis said he is the only candidate ready to be president on day one.

“If you want a change from Trump, I think I’m the best leader, and I give you the best chance to do well,” he said. “I’ve delivered  more for Republicans, conservative ideas, America First principles than anybody running.”

Trump is facing multiple criminal indictments and, because of that, is unable to focus on the job, DeSantis said. Trump would also be a lame-duck president, only able to serve one term if he were to get reelected.

“I don’t know how, as a lame duck president, with all the stuff he’s dealing with, he can get done what we need to get done.

“A Trump nomination guarantees the next election will be all about Trump, his court cases, his grievances, and his controversies. This sets up Democrats for an easy campaign,” DeSantis said.

“It wouldn’t be about the issues people are concerned about, and it would give the Democrats a huge advantage,” DeSantis added.

While he consistently comes up short of Trump in polling data, usually in second or third place, DeSantis said he is confident he will pick up support closer to the primary. Polls don’t capture the whole picture of the race, he said.

“If you look at the favorability ratings I’ve had, I’m one of the most well-liked Republicans in the country,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis was an early favorite for many Republicans who want to turn the page on Trump, and as a result, he has taken heat from Democrats, Republicans, and the media. 

“I’ve been attacked more than all the other candidates,” DeSantis said.

Minds will start to change once voters can see him up close and learn about his record as governor, he said. He said how he dealt with the COVID crisis, hurricanes, Black Lives Matter protests, and other events showed he is ready and able to lead.

“We showed our mettle when it was called for,” he said. 

New Hampshire middle schoolers have free access to books containing pornographic images of sex acts through their school libraries and through school-hosted library apps, a NHJournal investigation has found.

Books like “Gender Queer,” “This Book is Gay,” and “Flamer,” all of which contain explicit, graphic content, can be found in public middle school libraries across the state. They can also be accessed through school district websites that host apps like Sora, where students can get e-books from multiple sources.

While media coverage of the conversation about parental rights and school education content has focused on claims of censorship or alleged anti-gay sentiment, there has been relatively little coverage of the actual content in question. One reason, as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) recently demonstrated, is that the books are so graphic, their images can’t be broadcast on television or published in a community newspaper.

A DeSantis press conference on his state’s new law included a video with images from the books in question. The school library books depict “explicit language or pictures depicting male and female genitalia, different sexual acts and, in one case, instruction on masturbation.” Television stations had to cut away from the press conference during that video.

An edited version of art from the book Gender Queer

NH Journal was able to find many of the same books through school district library websites, including “This Book is Gay,” which contains instructions on how to perform gay sex.

Hanover SAU 70, where many of the books can be found, did not respond to a request for comment. 

State Rep. Glenn Cordelli (R-Tuftonboro) is sponsoring a bill to require school boards to adopt complaint policies that would allow parents to file objections to specific books. Currently, such policies are voluntary in New Hampshire.

Cordelli’s attempt to give parents the power to keep pornographic books out of their local school libraries is already getting pushback from teachers unions. Deb Howes, president of the New Hampshire chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, opposes the bill.

“What we don’t want is for one parent who objects to a book in the library or in the classroom to be able to decide for all children in that school what your child is able to read,” Howes told the New Hampshire Bulletin.

New Hampshire’s Department of Education is already fielding complaints about many of these books and said the matter can be taken to court. New Hampshire has had RSA 571-B Exposing Minors to Harmful Materials and RSA 650 Obscene Matter for decades. The laws allow either the Attorney General’s Office or any county attorney’s office to pursue obscenity cases in court. It is not known if any such cases are being brought before a judge.

A book with instructions on how to have gay sex is available to Hanover middle schoolers through the public library.

Progressives who want to control public school curricula and limit the influence of parents use the phrase “book ban” to paint conservatives as anti-literate haters who want to stamp out learning, says Shannon McGinley, executive director at Cornerstone Action of New Hampshire.

The issue is not literature, McGinley said. It’s porn.

“The problem with books like “Genderqueer” isn’t that they’re offensive. It’s that these books are graphic, illustrated pornography,” McGinley said. She wants to see New Hampshire Republicans focus on the content of these books, which are being accessed by children as young as 10 or 11.

“Any time Republicans talk in general terms about ‘obscene’ books, they help Democrats promote the fantasy that people are going after Huckleberry Finn and Harry Potter.

“Use the word ‘pornography,’” she said.

President Joe Biden may see himself as another FDR or LBJ, but progressive Democrats worry that, if he is the party’s banner carrier in 2024, their political hopes will be DOA.

And so, with Biden’s approval ratings languishing around 41 percent and new polls showing him losing a head-to-head match-up against Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), the progressive group RootsAction has launched an ad in New Hampshire featuring Granite Staters urging, “Don’t Run, Joe!”

The ads will air on WMUR during evening news broadcasts as well as on late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live, according to a statement from RootsAction. In the ad, Rep. Ellen Read (D-Newmarket) summarized the message by saying, “Our ideas are way more popular than Joe Biden is.”

Reached this week by NH Journal, Read said the ads are meant to spark a conversation among Democrats about a better way forward than the current status quo. Biden, who was first elected to the U.S. Senate the same year Richard Nixon was re-elected president, is part of what is wrong with current American politics, Read said.

“He’s part of the old guard who does the bidding of crony capitalists,” Read said. “Joe Biden represents that last 40 years of the same old, same old.”

And when Read says “old,” she means it.

“It is clear that Democrats can put forward a better candidate than Joe Biden,” Read said. “And it is clear he has some cognitive decline. He has some good days and some bad days.”

Read, a vocal supporter of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders during the last two presidential primaries, said the Democratic Party needs to strongly consider moving away from Biden and the way things have been done. Biden is too moderate and too old, she said.

It’s a sensitive issue for the 80-year-old Biden, according to media reports. In response to the drumbeat of coverage regarding his age and mental acuity, Politico quotes the president barking at a staffer “You think I don’t know how f—ing old I am?”

In a new poll released by Newsweek on Tuesday, nearly 60 percent of voters said Biden should not run again, and most cited his age as the reason. In June, a University of New Hampshire poll found 65 percent of Granite Staters said they did not want Biden to run in 2024. More significantly, just 54 percent of self-identified Democrats wanted Biden on the ballot, down from 74 percent a year earlier.

Another area of common interest could be Biden’s ongoing battle to strip New Hampshire Democrats of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. When news broke about the calendar Biden pushed on the DNC, RootsAction immediately spoke up.

“We believe President Biden’s move to replace New Hampshire with South Carolina as first-in-the nation is motivated by naked political self-interest, and nothing more,” RootsAction co-founder Jeff Cohen told NHJournal.

“Joe Biden should climb down from attempting to manipulate the Democratic primary schedule for his own narrow political purposes. As we pointed out when announcing the Don’t Run Joe campaign, ‘A president is not his party’s king, and he has no automatic right to renomination.'”

All of which means the Don’t Run Joe campaign could find fertile political ground in the Granite State. The push began just hours after last month’s midterms elections ended with text messages to local Democrats. “It’s up to NH Democrats to choose a bold leader who can defeat the fascistic Republican Party and help other Dems win,” one of text read.

RootsAction says Biden’s “moderate” policies on a host of issues like climate change, student loan debt, voting rights and healthcare have failed, and he is not likely to win in 2024.

Read has been disappointed in the anti-worker politics coming out of the Biden Administration, citing the recent railroad worker contract as an example. Biden’s team stopped rail workers’ unions from striking by forcing them to work under a contract already negotiated.

Read does not have a specific candidate in mind to replace Biden just yet. But she said with the midterms done it is time for liberals and progressives to reassess priorities. She said Biden has too often used progressive positions like student debt relief and marijuana decriminalization as campaign tools in a cyclical ploy for votes.

“We need people who will not play partisan games anymore,” she said. “Everyone is sick of the bitter divide we’re experiencing. The answer is not more (centrism,) the answer is good faith engagement.”

Mainstream New Hampshire Democrats have largely stayed out of the question about Biden’s reelection. Senator Maggie Hassan (D) for example, rarely mentioned Biden during her campaign this fall and dodged questions about his possible 2024 run. One establishment Democratic insider told NHJournal that “Biden’s victories and accomplishments” in recent weeks have made the president more popular among Democrats, and that if he runs, he’ll certainly be the nominee.

Progressives are still pushing the other way.

Former Rep. Sherry Frost, D-Dover, is an early backer of the effort to oust Biden.

“I am eager to support a candidate who understands the fatal dysfunction in our economy and is willing to hold the ultra-wealthy individuals and corporations to their obligations,” Frost said in a statement. “I am not confident that Biden is that candidate, and while I appreciate his rescuing us from another Trump term, I believe we need someone else to champion the big and systemic changes we need to continue to strive toward our more perfect union.”

Biden is expected to formally decide whether he will run again sometime around Christmas. So far, the only declared candidate in the 2024 race is former President Donald Trump.

Read is not concerned about the optics of the Don’t Run Joe campaign possibly harming Democrats. The campaign is meant to get Democrats thinking about alternatives, but it won’t interfere with Biden if he does get into the race. The Biden dissidents will stand down for the good of the party, she said.

“The Don’t Run Joe campaign ends after (he) decides whether to or not to run,” she said.