The tenants of the White House have a huge advantage over the rest of the candidates when it comes to winning the primaries. Even Joe Biden, one of the presidents with the lowest popularity, has easily won the New Hampshire primary, where he came fifth in 2020. He has also done so without getting off the bus: without participating in a single campaign event and without even appearing on the ballots. The projections of the American media show him as the winner although the scrutiny still has a long way to go.
Biden is not disqualified nor has his eligibility been questioned, as has happened with Donald Trump in Colorado and Maine for his role in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The president simply missed the deadlines to register as a result of a fight of the Democratic Party to move the New Hampshire vote back into the primary calendar.
Although his name did not appear pre-printed on the ballots, citizens could vote for him by writing their name in the blank box reserved for this purpose. Biden has not campaigned in the State, but his allies have made an effort to make it clear to voters how to do so. The counting of the Democratic primaries is somewhat complicated with this type of voting, since the machines do not detect the name, only that the vote goes to another candidate and must be processed manually.
“I am here to show my support for Joe Biden and encourage my friends and neighbors to vote for him,” Colin Van Ostern, a 44-year-old technology executive and prominent Democratic activist, said this Tuesday at the doors of a polling station in Concord, The state capital. “He's not on the ballot because of a political dispute within the party, but I'm not going to let the party bureaucrats decide who I vote for, whether I'm going to vote for him or not. “Joe Biden is the only person who has defeated Donald Trump and will do it again,” he added.
While Donald Trump and Nikki Haley went to polling stations in New Hampshire and held their parties there to monitor the election results, Biden held a rally in Manassas (Virginia) with the right to abortion as a central theme. Democrats consider abortion to be one of the issues that most mobilizes their voters.
In 2020, Biden achieved the Democratic nomination despite placing fifth in New Hampshire with only 8.4% of the vote. Then, as president, Biden promoted a change in the primary calendar in the Democratic Party last year. He urged the Democratic National Committee to change the order, removing the starting gun for the caucus of Iowa (a white, conservative and religious state) to give it to the South Carolina primaries. The goal was to give more power to black and other minority voters, crucial to the party's base.
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In February, the Democratic Party approved a new schedule beginning with the South Carolina primary on February 3, followed three days later by New Hampshire and Nevada. Iowa disciplinedly accepted that there would be no voting in the caucus Democrats last week, but New Hampshire rebelled. State law gives New Hampshire Secretary of State, Republican David Scanlan, the exclusive authority to set the date of the 2024 primary. As has been the case for 40 years, he has set it for the Tuesday of the week following the caucus of Iowa. The rule also establishes that primaries must be held at least seven days before any other primaries. The ensuing scuffle has left Biden off the ballot and prevented the winner from winning delegates to the convention that nominates the president.
There were 21 names on the Democratic ballot, including a president, but not by position, but by name: President R. Boddie. Also featured is Vermin Supreme, an eccentric activist known for wearing a rubber boot on his head as a hat. Of all of them, the only ones with any political weight were Congressman Dean Phillips and self-help book writer Marianne Williamson, who already tried in 2020, but withdrew before voting began.
Turnout in the Democratic primaries has been much lower than in the Republican primaries, mainly because they were not perceived as competitive. Biden's victory was taken for granted even without his name appearing on the ballots. Congressman Dean Phillips has been attracting more people to his events, but they were still very much in the minority.
The end of the campaign has been marked by false calls in which a voice apparently generated with artificial intelligence impersonated Joe Biden and discouraged people from voting now and asked to reserve participation for the November presidential elections. The New Hampshire attorney general's office announced this Monday the opening of an investigation. That kind of deepfakes They threaten to become a problem in future elections.
“These messages appear to be an illegal attempt to disrupt the New Hampshire presidential primary elections and suppress voters,” the Prosecutor's Office said in a statement. “New Hampshire voters should completely ignore the content of this message. Voting in the New Hampshire presidential primary does not preclude a voter from also voting in the November general election,” she adds.
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