For Biden in New Hampshire, it’s complicated
EDOVER, N.H. arlier this month, Representative Ro Khanna of California joined other progressive lawmakers in Washington to berate President Biden for launching a strike against the Houthis in Yemen without first getting approval from Congress, a presidential move they called out as unconstitutional.
But on Sunday, Khanna — dressed in a dazzling white shirt, elegant overcoat, and sleek shoes versus clunky winter boots — stood in a few inches of cold New Hampshire snow in Dover to support a Biden write-in campaign in the New Hampshire primary. When asked about their policy differences, Khanna, a Bernie Sanders backer in 2020, said: “It’s no secret I’m more progressive than the president. But you can be more progressive and support this president for what he has achieved and what he’s going to achieve.” That simple message from the ever-volatile left wing of the Democratic Party is one that Biden needs if he hopes to hold together any semblance of the coalition that sent him to the White House. But even with it, New Hampshire in 2024 is complicated for Biden.
In the name of diversity and perhaps revenge for Biden’s fifth-place finish in New Hampshire in 2020, the Democratic National Committee designated South Carolina as the site of the party’s first primary. So Biden’s name isn’t on the New Hampshire ballot. While the DNC has said that any Biden vote in New Hampshire is “meaningless,” that didn’t stop Democratic activists from running a shadow grass-roots “Write-in Joe Biden” campaign in the Granite State. Meanwhile, a less organized campaign urging Democrats to write in “ceasefire” concerning the Israel-Hamas war complicates an already complicated scenario.
Democrats in New Hampshire want Biden to “win” the primary even though his name is not on the ballot — and Donald Trump wants him to lose it. At a weekend rally, Trump urged Democrats to vote for Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, whose name appears on the New Hampshire ballot along with 20 other Democrats not named Biden. According to NBC News, a robocall that seemed to discourage Democrats from voting also went out on Sunday night. While it was unclear who was behind it, the Write-in Joe Biden campaign put out a statement calling it “deep fake disinformation designed to harm Joe Biden.”
When asked whether the “ceasefire” write-in campaign might undercut support for the Biden write-in campaign, Khanna — who supports a cease-fire, conditional to the release of all Israeli hostages — said that others who support it should understand that “President Biden and Tony Blinken are going to do a lot more to save civilian lives, for peace in the Middle East and for a two-state solution than Donald Trump, who would basically green light the far-right elements of the Netanyahu government.” Khanna also said he’s disappointed by the attack that Phillips is making against Biden but predicted Biden will win more votes in the Jan. 23 primary. When that happens, he said, “if [Ron] DeSantis can get on Team Trump, Dean Phillips can get on Team Biden.” There’s no guarantee of that, however, since Phillips is threatening a third-party run.
In an interview, Aaron Jacobs, the spokesperson for the Write-in Joe Biden campaign, hailed the “organic energy” of the effort, which involves people holding signs that show a ballot and where a voter must write in Biden’s name. As the Sunday afternoon “visibility” event unfolded at a traffic circle in Dover, “organic energy” meant some drivers honked their horns in support but one drove through twice to scream an expletive followed by Biden’s name. Khanna’s participation, Jacobs said, shows that “the full range of the Democratic Party
spectrum is represented. … At the end of the day, the stakes in the election are really clear and stark and this is democracy versus dictatorship.” But with progressives, there are overlapping interests at stake.
Alice Wade, 22, who was part of the visibility effort, said that as a progressive she supports Biden because, “Despite my frustrations with Biden over certain situations like Gaza, he has made a lot of good progressive changes over the course of his presidency.” Citing issues like student debt relief and improved Medicare benefits, she said, “I know that if a Republican were to get into office, there’s absolutely no chance any of that would have gotten done. So, to me, the valuable part is to keep moving forward, even if it’s not as fast as some of us would have wanted.”
Still, when it comes to the “ceasefire” write-in campaign, Wade said she respects anyone who does that because she too supports that outcome. However, she said she’s writing in Biden’s name because the media “will take whatever result comes out of New Hampshire and spin it however they want.”
The DNC can write off any Biden write-in votes as “meaningless,” but she’s right. The media’s framing of those results is another story. Which makes New Hampshire not just complicated for Biden but risky, too.