MANASSAS, Virginia — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris rallied in support of abortion rights in Virginia on Tuesday as New Hampshire voters took part in the unofficial first Democratic primary of the 2024 cycle.
Biden is not on the ballot in New Hampshire after the state declined to abide by a Democratic National Committee decision from last year that elevated South Carolina to first in the nation status. New Hampshire’s primary results will not award any delegates at the national nominating convention this summer, though the president’s supporters have launched an extensive write-in campaign in the hope of helping him secure victory despite not spending a single day campaigning in the Granite State.
Instead, Biden, Harris, first lady Jill Biden, and second gentleman Doug Emhoff held the campaign’s first joint rally of the year at George Mason University, where the president and vice president stressed the need to ensure abortion rights federally and warned of the threats former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee, poses to women’s reproductive freedom and other civil liberties.
Emhoff, who enjoys some of the highest favorability numbers in the entire Biden administration, and the first lady commenced Tuesday’s rally.
“I have an 83-year-old mother, and we also have a 24-year-old daughter, so how is it possible that my mother will have enjoyed more rights than our daughter,” Emhoff declared.
“Reproductive freedom is not a woman’s issue. It’s an everyone’s issue,” he continued. “What they’re doing is immoral. What they’re doing is wrong. We need to stand up for the dignity and freedom of all Americans.”
“We need men in this fight too, so Doug, thank you,” Jill Biden added. “This will not be the legacy we leave to our daughters and granddaughters, will it? The choice this election is clear. Women put Joe and Kamala in the White House, and we will do it again.”
Harris, who has effectively become the face of the Biden administration’s abortion rights push, took the stage immediately after the first and second spouses.
“We have in Joe Biden a courageous fighter for our most fundamental freedoms as Americans, including the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body,” the vice president opened. “Across our nation, extremists have proposed and passed laws that criminalize doctors and clinics and women. Laws that make no exception, even for rape and incest, and let us all agree, one does not have to abandon their faith, their deeply held beliefs to believe the government should not be telling her what to do with her body.”
“Former President Trump handpicked — handpicked — three Supreme Court Justices because he intended them to overturn Roe. Intended them to take your freedoms. He is the architect of this healthcare crisis,” she continued. “And he is not done. Extremists are not done. In the United States Congress, extremists are trying to pass a national abortion ban in every state. What they need to know is that we will not allow it.”
Finally, Joe Biden took the stage and introduced himself as “Jill Biden’s husband,” a mainstay of his 2020 campaign, yet was repeatedly interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters.
Joe Biden has been heckled by activists calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for weeks, but Tuesday’s outbursts appeared to be a much more coordinated effort. Fourteen different protesters, located in different parts of the auditorium, interrupted the president thirteen separate times from start to finish.
Still, the president, buoyed by chants of “four more years” and “let’s go Joe” from supporters, powered through and sought to attack Trump for the overturning of Roe.
None of the speakers on Tuesday made any mention of the New Hampshire primary.
Joe Biden’s decision to alter Democrats’ long-adhered-to election calendar stemmed from his want to reward black voters in South Carolina for effectively saving his 2020 campaign, as well as pick a state that better reflected the demographics of America.
Still, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) and author Marianne Williamson are looking to throw a speed bump at Joe Biden’s likely nomination by outperforming expectations in New Hampshire, pressing voters on why they should support a man more interested in a “coronation” than an election.
Phillips has said that Joe Biden earning anything less than 80% would be a major failure for the president and could undercut his support ahead of South Carolina’s Feb. 3 primary. For comparison, former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, the last two Democrats to seek a second term in the White House, pulled 81% and 84%, respectively, in their reelection New Hampshire primaries.
“If his numbers are below that,” Phillips told reporters over the weekend, “I think it’s just more evidence of the fact that Democrats are deluded and we need a real competition, not a coronation.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who is limited by the Hatch Act from discussing the upcoming election, did not bite when asked Tuesday about Joe Biden’s decision to rally in Virginia rather than New Hampshire and referred questions about any scheduling back to the campaign.
“They’re going to be speaking about reproductive healthcare and the importance of that. Yesterday would have been the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade before the Supreme Court overturned Roe, and we have seen the devastating effects that that overturning of Roe have had across the country,” she said before stating that she had not spoken to Joe Biden about his write-in campaign.
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“I think the president’s concern right now is making sure that we continue to deliver for the American people,” Jean-Pierre continued. “That’s his focus.”
You can watch Joe Biden’s rally in full below: