The conventional wisdom is that the New Hampshire presidential primary — a 100 year old home grown tradition that has moved history and forced the country to take a second look at seemingly settled questions — is poised to grumpily ratify a choice nobody really likes, and undermine it’s long standing claim empower thoughtful grass roots politics, putting it’s FITN status in further peril.
Swiftly moving events of the past week, as our hard copy special edition went to press, convince many of this.
The traditional bustle on Elm Street in Manchester, particularly the media nerve center at the Double Tree, seems more subdued. Both parties and their activists settle into a joyless tribalism, settling for leaders they are deeply uneasy about, convinced the alternatives lack the stature to match the moment, and the triumph of the other party means the end of civilization.
It was a bizarre pre-season. A controversial ex president was ousted in the last election, send a mob to try and prevent a peaceful transfer of power, and saw an underwhelming midterm election performance by his party blamed on him. A year ago the GOP seemed ready to move past Donald Trump. Then 4 criminal indictments, 91 charges, rained down on Trump. Something that would have doomed any other political candidates, revived Trump’s standing with rank and file Republicans. The indictments came from grand juries, and Trump has remained at greater liberty most criminal defendants as garrulous as he has been about witnesses, prosecutors and judges. But the same predisposition to embrace ill conceived notions of victimhood that drove J6, drove a Trump recovery.
From the beginning, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis looked best situated to unhorse Trump. Charmless but capable, DeSantis indeed delivered on Trump’s nasty agenda, as he tamed the once swing state of Florida. In Iowa, he won over the popular governor, and key evangelical leaders so influential in GOP caucuses in Iowa. He went to every county, and a record breaking snow storm caucus night seemed to favor the best ground game.
Nikki Haley won the Sununu Primary. The popular NH governor endorsed her and she quickly emerged as most likely to attract moderate anti Trump GOP votes, as well as a great many undeclared voters allowed to vote in major party primaries in NH.
But Trump won over 50% in Iowa, DeSantis, 2nd with just 21%, led Haley by 2 points. Trump won every county but one (which Haley won by a single vote, causing Trump to fire his coordinator for that county) and Haley underperformed in Iowa counties with voters most like those she needed in NH.
Haley stormed into NH, her campaign propped up by Sununu and Koch Brothers money, but she remained oddly reluctant to criticize Trump, as were all of Trump’s rivals. When he confused her with Pelosi, she brought up her proposal that presidential candidates over 75 years of age take a mental competency test. She ran an ad featuring the parents of Otto Warmbier, who found her more supportive than Trump in their 2017 ordeal in North Korea. Asa Hutchinson endorsed her, but he trailed Ryan Binkley in Iowa. Trump was endorsed by Tim Scott, who also announced his engagement, and who learned he would be the convention keynoter. Sunday DeSantis withdrew and endorsed Trump. Multiple polls all showed the same trend, Trump lead of more or less 10 points had more than doubled by the end of the week. Haley had warm coverage in the Concord Monitor and Union Leader, but by Monday Sununu was lowering expectations.
The Dem side was even more strange. Long suffering NH Dem regulars think producing for an unauthorized Biden write-in might restore the FITN primary status to DNC good graces. While effectively blacked out by most media Congressman Dean Phillips began drawing larger crowds, including at a coffee shop in Concord Friday night. Able to invest personal wealth in his bid, he has some good ads up, including a good humored one that compares the missing President Biden to the elusive Big Foot monster. He has signed on Jeff Weaver, hero of the early Bernie insurgency, and touted support from ex House Speaker Steve Shurtleff and Andrew Yang. He touts the courage of his position, but his manner reflects the hospitality of a coffee shop proprietor. Everyone is invited.
People are beginning to learn that he was not just the step grandson of Dear Abby, who lost his dad in Vietnam, made a pile in Belvedere Vodka and Talenti Gelato, and served briefly in congress. He emerges as a man of greater depth and substance. A serious congressman. A businessman. A university regent. His issue positions are a mix of Sandernista and Problem Solvers Caucus centrism.
He was part of the House leadership, he chaired the House Foreign affairs sub committee on the Mideast. He flipped a red congressional district in 2018, appalled by Trump, and sure to return to the GOP after vindictive primary challengers were recruited against him (causing him to not run). He expresses affection for President Biden but thinks it is manifest that, at a minimum, Biden can not communicated effectively with the public, a problem for any modern president, a disaster in competition with an unscrupulous foe like Trump. He had Newsom and Whitmer and asked them to run. Somebody has to do it, he insists. “There might not be a 2028,” he warns, flatly stating Trump will find a pretext to not leave in 2029, a la Putin. Before we speak too glibly about the vanity candidacies of junior congressmen we might consider the concept of a different kind of vanity candidacy, an incumbent who thinks “I alone can fix it.” This could apply to either Trump or Biden.
Is Phillips gaining converts? Write-in efforts are easier in NH. Polls show him as low as 9%, as close as 58 to 28%, the latter such result might create new pressure on Biden to keep his word, and retire an honored one term transitional president, who held the line on MAGA, and maturely and generously made way.
Mike Billings, Tom Brennan, Lynn Levesque and Les Barnett contributed to this report