He's not on the NH ballot, but Biden's allies are hoping he'll still win

If President Biden's reelection campaign can feel like a slog elsewhere, the write-in effort for him in the New Hampshire primary is imbued with the kind of joy one finds in feisty underdogs.

Veteran Democrats in the state pressed the party's voters and independents on Tuesday to write in Mr. Biden's name, a move necessitated by his absence from the ballot after New Hampshire fought his decision to can be placed back on the nomination calendar.

The effort has energized Democrats in New Hampshire, who have long suffered from micromanagement from national party leaders. The writing effort has freed them from outside interference and allowed them to run a campaign the way they want.

And they are becoming more and more optimistic.

Without support or communication from the Democratic National Committee or Mr. Biden's campaign headquarters in Delaware, these New Hampshire Democrats, who started the Write-In Biden campaign late last year, now expect to help deliver the president a landslide victory.

“There's a lot happening here to support Joe Biden,” said Kathleen Sullivan, a former chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party who heads a Biden super PAC. “We were able to build an energy, excitement and support for him that we don't see anywhere else in the country.”

Mr Biden withdrew his name from the primary ballot after New Hampshire refused to comply with the Democratic National Committee's new calendar, making South Carolina the first state to nominate the presidential candidate.

Other Democrats challenging Mr. Biden are trying to capitalize — including Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, author Marianne Williamson and 19 other Democrats on New Hampshire's expanded primary.

Mr. Biden's campaign declined to comment on the state's primaries. In an interview Friday in Seneca, S.C., DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison dismissed the New Hampshire contest as irrelevant and pleaded ignorance of Biden's write-in effort.

“Our first primary in the country is here in South Carolina, and that's what I'm focused on,” Mr. Harrison said. “So I'm not sure or aware of what they're doing in New Hampshire.”

Although the formal Democratic Party apparatus has stayed away from New Hampshire and the state hasn't had a presidential visit since 2022, the Biden administration has curiously still showered the state with attention.

New Hampshire Public Radio noted that in one week this month, five secretaries in Mr. Biden's Cabinet visited the state — though none would speak directly about the primary race.

Mr. Phillips has spent millions of dollars on television advertising in New Hampshire, and Ms. Williamson has activated supporters involved in her 2020 campaign — when she finished 14th with 95 votes. An opinion poll released Sunday by CNN and the University of New Hampshire showed that 63 percent of likely voters in the state's Democratic primary said they would write in Mr. Biden, 10 percent planned to vote for Mr. Phillips and 9 percent planned to support Ms. Williamson.

In the final days of the primaries, New Hampshire Democrats who support Mr. Biden have been a little self-congratulatory while dismissing Mr. Phillips as a nonentity.

Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, a Democrat who represents the western and northern parts of the state, said an impressive triumph for Mr. Biden would send a signal that he had no legitimate Democratic challengers. She said Mr Phillips could place himself behind Ms Williamson.

“Imagine if we hadn't done the report and no one had voted,” she said over lunch in Manchester on Saturday. “Then the story would have been: Oh, Donald Trump is in, but we don't know who will be on our side.”

Mr. Phillips, who began his campaign in October, just before the New Hampshire election eligibility deadline, said he would deliver “a real surprise” in the state but stopped short of promising of a victory over a candidate who is not. on the ballot.

“As far as Tuesday night goes, I think everything is going to be a success,” he told reporters after a campaign stop on Saturday in Nashua. “When I'm in double figures or in my 20s, that's what I'd like to see. Anyway, I'll keep going.”

Mr. Phillips said he would next take his campaign to Michigan, and then to South Carolina. He said he could not name a state where he believed he would win a primary against Mr. Biden, whom he characterized as weak and likely to lose the general election.

“If he's somewhere in the 50s or 60s, I think it's a demonstration of both his weakness and his unelectability,” Mr. Phillips said. “The country will have to realize that and the Democrats will finally have to wake up from their delusions about him.”

There is also a low-budget campaign to encourage New Hampshire Democrats, angry about Mr. Biden's position on the Israel-Gaza war, to enforce a “ceasefire.”

William Shaheen, a Democratic activist from New Hampshire who is married to the state's senior senator, Jeanne Shaheen, said that despite the visibility of the letter-writing effort in direct mail and in the local news media, it was still very uncertain how many people would go to the polls to support Mr Biden.

Independent voters, he said, are much more likely to vote in the Republican primaries for what could be a final chance to block Trump.

“If New Hampshire were to officially be the nation's first primary by the DNC, I think it would be a blow in Joe Biden's favor,” Mr. Shaheen said. “It makes it a little harder to go out and write his name in.”

He added: “I don't think many people who are independents are going to write in Joe Biden's name.”

Ms. Sullivan called the local writing effort for Mr. Biden “liberating and refreshing” after decades of working for presidential campaigns sending orders from distant states.

“If you had a group of people from New Hampshire two days before the primary, we would complain about the people running the campaign,” she said. “We don't do that because it is run by grassroots people.”

She said the Biden campaign would be wise to turn to Democrats in New Hampshire for guidance on how to conduct the general election campaign in the state.

“We like to tell them what we think they should do,” Ms. Sullivan said.

Maya King contributed reporting from Seneca, SC