If Florida is where “woke” policies go to die, then New Hampshire is where Democrats’ dreams of a new primary calendar go to die.
Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, has been driving home that message for so long now that he is dumbfounded as to why it Democrats in Washington refuse to come to grips with the reality of the situation.
“They’re fools,” Mr. Sununu told The Washington Times. “I don’t know what’s going to happen other than we are going first.”
Democrats are staring down the possibility that President Biden might not be on the New Hampshire primary ballot — opening the door for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Marianne Williamson to notch primary wins.
For Mr. Biden, it would not be an ideal start to what is supposed to be his decisive nomination.
Some Democrats in New Hampshire are now considering a Biden write-in campaign.
National Democrats approved a new calendar this year that upends tradition by substituting South Carolina for New Hampshire as the first primary stop in the nomination race.
The challenge facing national Democrats is a New Hampshire state law requiring it to hold the first primary contest and Mr. Sununu and the GOP-controlled legislature — and many New Hampshire Democrats — have zero interest in changing that law.
“This isn’t a battle of wills, the law is going to win,” Mr. Sununu said.
The stalemate led the DNC this week to grant New Hampshire party officials another extension, this time until mid-October, to comply with their new calendar demands and set a primary date that comes after South Carolina’s Feb. 4 contest.
Raymond Buckley, chair of the New Hampshire Democrats, however, has repeatedly insisted, that the state party’s hands are tied.
“We have done everything in our power to comply with the DNC’s requests with regard to our primary calendar and have every intention of complying with New Hampshire state law from which the primary date is set,” Mr. Buckley said in a statement. “We look forward to putting this unnecessary distraction behind us and focusing on electing Granite State Democrats.”
Under the new calendar, the 2024 Democratic presidential primary begins Feb. 3 in South Carolina, which is home to a large number of Black voters who revived Mr. Biden’s flagging 2020 campaign.
From there the contest would move on to contests in Nevada and New Hampshire on Feb. 6, Georgia on Feb. 13 and Michigan on Feb. 27.
Things, though, have not worked out as planned. Even Iowa officials have yet to finalize whether they will hold their caucuses on the same day as the Jan. 15 Republican contest, adding another wrinkle.
“The Democrat Party seems to be in a constant state of chaos, and I remind people, it’s only because Joe Biden opened his big mouth a year ago, and basically said, ’Oh, yeah, by the way, I’m gonna get some political payback to my personal friends in South Carolina, give them the first in the nation primary,’ without having any understanding of how it any of it actually worked,” Mr. Sununu said.
At this point, Mr. Sununu said Democrats are trying to “save face.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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