With Biden’s Name Off New Hampshire Ballot, Some Democrats Prepare to Write Him In

New Hampshire Democrat Ron King had the evidence on display: photographs of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and other Democratic presidential hopefuls who passed through Concord on their way to victory, or defeat.

“My wife and I hosted 11, 12 candidates. Obama was here when he was running,” Mr. King told The Epoch Times, adding that he was “very heavily” involved in local politics.

A “Write-In Joe Biden” sign was on display in Mr. King’s yard, and many other New Hampshire yards, on Jan. 19, 2024, just days ahead of the state’s presidential primaries.

While Marianne Williamson, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-N.H.), and even electoral performance artist Vermin Supreme appear on Democratic primary ballots in the state, the incumbent president will be missing.

The situation eerily parallels the New Hampshire primary of 1968, when incumbent President Lyndon Baines Johnson barely eked out a victory in a New Hampshire write-in campaign, before dropping out soon after. That, in turn, set the stage for the famously turbulent Democratic convention in Chicago—the same city that will host the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

Democratic Turf War and a Test for Biden’s Viability

President Joe Biden’s glaring absence comes after a dispute between the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the state over New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation status. National Democrats wanted to end that tradition, leading their party’s primary season calendar with South Carolina.

Related Stories

“We must ensure that voters of color have a voice in choosing our nominee much earlier in the process and throughout the entire early window… Our early states must reflect the overall diversity of our party and our nation,” the letter read in part.

But while Iowa Democrats compromised over timing their party’s contest, the government officials in the “Live Free or Die” state who run its primary process defied them.

Mr. Splaine predicts the state’s Democratic primary will come first in 2028 too: “As in the past, our state law protected our primary this year; it will do so again in four years.”

Registered Republicans who might want to throw their weight behind another Democrat in that primary would have had to register as Democrats by Oct. 6, 2023. Independent voters have more leeway.

However, Republicans and conservative-leaning independents may not want to forego the chance to vote in the GOP primary, particularly in light of worries that independent voters and some early-registering Democrats will be pulling for former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley.

Yet, that’s down from 70 percent in July 2023 and 78 percent in September 2023—and, notwithstanding the write-in campaign’s attempt to educate voters, writing in a name is a little harder than simply choosing from a menu of options.

If President Biden gets less than half of total votes or has a margin of victory that dips below 50 percent, his “viability will be in doubt,” according to Mr. Splaine.

‘Nobody Knew What the [Expletive] to Do’ About Biden’s Absence From Ballot

One New Hampshire Democrat who spoke with The Epoch Times conveyed the impression of a chaotic and somewhat late response to President Biden’s absence from the state’s Democratic primary ballot.

“Nobody knew what the [expletive] to do,” said Micha Dillge, a bartender who said he was a volunteer with the “Write-In Joe Biden” campaign.

“We’re making it up as we go along,” Mr. Dillge said.

Others supporting the write-in campaign sounded more positive.

“Biden will pull a strong write-in vote—there’s no doubt in my mind,” John Grady, a retired middle school principal, told The Epoch Times.

He has been a “strong Democrat since 1968,” he said. That year, he supported Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.), an anti-war candidate running against incumbent President Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Vietnam War.

“President Biden could do the same [drop out] if early primaries, including ours, indicate a lack of strength, leaving time still available starting in February for other Democrats to step up prior to the Democratic National Convention in August,” Mr. Splaine wrote in his recent column.

Mr. Grady said the “party faithful” he knew were preparing to write in President Biden’s name. He predicted that Ms. Williamson and Mr. Phillips, who are now actively campaigning in the state in the vacuum left by President Biden, will “go down as a footnote in history.”

“Hopefully he’ll at least be the one that has the most votes,” Susan Covert, a Biden supporter in Hopkinton, told The Epoch Times.

New Hampshire Democrats Worry About Democracy, Climate Change

Trump supporters in New Hampshire who spoke with The Epoch Times listed the economy and the border among their top concerns. They’re worried about what four more years of President Biden might mean for the country.

“With Biden and the way the economy’s going—with inflation and all of these different things—people are just tired of it,” Sam Tocci told The Epoch Times. Mr. Tocci, who was visiting from Virginia, was parking his car in the driveway of his brother Jed’s home in Hopkinton.

But Democrats preparing to write in President Biden’s name are equally—or even more—concerned about what a second Trump term might look like.

Mr. King believes the former president “wants to be a dictator.”

“I was born in Germany,” Mr. Dillge said, adding that he fears the United States could slip into National Socialist-style authoritarianism.

Ms. Covert said climate change was one of her major concerns, based on what she has observed around the Granite State—specifically, the date of the first frost advancing further in the calendar.

Yet, even for her, the climate comes second.

“Democracy’s first, and then climate change,” she said. “It’s terrifying to me that we could have a president who doesn’t care about democracy.”

At a Jan. 20 rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, the former president again addressed the issue.

“I wanted to be cute. I always gotta be cute… We were having fun,” President Trump said, accusing the media of selectively editing the clip. President Biden is the genuine “threat to democracy,” he said.

Shortly afterward, a man in the audience charged towards the stage. He was escorted out before he could get too close to President Trump.

Mr. Tocci said that Democrats were wrong to worry about any dictatorial tendencies from him because of the liberty-minded nature of his base.

“We held our guns and voted for Trump, because if he was going to be a dictator, the Left and the Democrats didn’t have to worry about being oppressed,“ he said. ”The Right and Republicans would have been the first ones to say, ‘Nope!’”

Everyday New Hampshire Democrats Divided on First-in-the-Nation Status

While Mr. Splaine and some other local Democrats are strong defenders of New Hampshire’s place in the primary pecking order, some supporters of the write-in campaign were more critical of it.

Mr. Dillge characterized the status quo as undemocratic.

“I think it’s not only legitimate what they did, but it’s illegitimate for New Hampshire to think they get to go first all the time.”

Mr. Grady also defended the DNC against his state’s decision. He jokingly added that local top Democrats “would probably take me behind the woodshed and give me a good thrashing” for voicing that opinion, a sign of the split between top Democrats within the state and at least some in the party’s rank and file. 

Like others who spoke with The Epoch Times, he argued that the heavily white state isn’t demographically representative enough—a perspective that the former secretary of state, Bill Gardner, does not share.

“Denying the people of this state because we’re too white is a shame,” he told The Epoch Times.

Mr. Grady suggested that influential local figures, including Gov. Chris Sununu, like their state’s primary coming first because “it boosts their ego.”

But Mr. King, the man who has hosted national Democrats for decades, thinks that the Granite State should retain its first-in-the-nation status.

“I understand that the Democrats are looking for a more diverse population,” he said before adding that New Hampshire was “special” in some other ways.

“Here in New Hampshire, we’re small enough; they [candidates] can get around to all the towns if they need to or want to,” he said, arguing that South Carolina, several times larger than New Hampshire, is too big for that approach to be realistic.

In New Hampshire, he said, “When you talk to people, you better tell them what you’re thinking and give them the essence of what they want to know.”

The “Write-In Joe Biden” sign on Mr. King’s property did not stay in place for too long. It was either stolen or placed out of sight.

It’s as self-evidently true today as it was in 1968: New Hampshire politics, conducted at a very human scale, is not above human folly, ferocity, and, yes, failure.

The Epoch Times reached out to the New Hampshire Democratic Party and the DNC for comment.