Today is round two for the Republicans with the New Hampshire Primary. Because primary dates are set by state law, there will also be a non-binding primary (a/k/a “beauty contest”) on the Democratic side (more on that below).
While there will be other candidates on the ballot, there are only two major candidates on the Republican side — Donald Trump and Nikki Haley. Given that New Hampshire has a semi-open primary in which independents can vote in either party’s primary, it is believed that there will be a significant number of “moderates” who opt to vote in the Republican primary. If there is a chance for Nikki Haley to win nationally, she needs a win in New Hampshire. Given Trump’s many issues (legal, physical, mental), the Republicans really do not need the chaos that would ensue if Trump “wins” the nomination but has to withdraw before the convention. (And while it is hard to project what the Supreme Court intends to do, it is easier for them to do the legally correct thing if Trump is not the presumptive Republican nominee.) New Hampshire is a proportional state, so unless Haley or Trump blows the other out of the water what really matters here is the perception that Haley can compete and beat Trump than the actual delegate count.)
On the Democratic side, the timing of the New Hampshire primary (set by state law) violates the national delegate selection rules. As a result, the primary is a non-binding primary. Because the New Hampshire Democratic Party has decided to resist the national rules and support the unenforceable state law mandating that other states let New Hampshire goes first, New Hampshire has had its delegate total reduced to ten delegates. More importantly, we do not yet have an approved plan for how those delegates will be chosen.
What we do know is that the national party rules provide that any candidate who appears on the ballot in the unapproved primary will be ineligible to get delegates later. Thus, President Biden will not be appearing on the ballot although his “main” opponents have filed to appear on the ballot. But New Hampshire law allows write-ins. Since the media needs a story to tell, they will focus on whether President Biden gets enough write-ins to “win” New Hampshire. Needless to say, it is harder to get votes as a write-in, and there is no official campaign supporting the write-in effort. But many local Democrats recognize how embarrassing it would be nationally and how damaging it would be to New Hampshire Democrats efforts to get the national party to restore its place at the front of the campaign for 2028 if Dean Phillips or Marianne Williamson “won” New Hampshire.
