Sununu claims New Hampshire primary provides ‘huge opportunity’ for Biden challenger

Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) claimed on Wednesday that President Joe Biden’s 2024 Democratic challenger, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), could seize a huge opportunity in New Hampshire because the president will not appear on the ballot.

Democrats in New Hampshire who have been loyal to the president recently launched a major “write-in” campaign that calls for voters to write his name down as an alternative candidate.

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“Here’s the news flash to Joe Biden: Nobody cares. Nobody really cares that Joe Biden is not on the ballot. There’s not some giant clambering wing of the Democrat Party saying, ‘I wish I could vote for Biden in the New Hampshire primary,'” Sununu told Fox News Radio. “I think Dean Phillips has a huge opportunity here to just crack the Democrat Party wide open.”

The Republican governor said he has long believed that Biden would not be the Democratic nominee in 2024, but prior to Phillips, there were no serious contenders who could win the nomination instead.

The write-in initiative comes less than a week after Biden’s campaign confirmed it would forgo filing to appear on the ballot in the Granite State for the Democratic primary, citing guidance from the Democratic National Committee. The committee decided in February to replace New Hampshire with South Carolina as the first-in-the-nation Democratic primary state and move New Hampshire to second place along with Nevada.

“We’re the first primary. There’s no doubt about it. Joe Biden tried to move the primary out of New Hampshire to South Carolina. It didn’t work,” Sununu said. “The Iowa Democrats thought about trying to take it and put a primary in Iowa. That didn’t work. We’re first. We’re going first. That’s all there is. Joe Biden won’t be on the ballot.”

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The controversy comes because New Hampshire has a state law that requires the state to have its primary at least a week before the rest of the country. But states that break the DNC’s rules and decide to go out of the primary calendar order can see their delegates cut by 50%, and candidates who campaign in the state won’t receive any delegates, according to rules passed by the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee last August.

New Hampshire’s primary is currently scheduled for January 2024.