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Tag: democratic national committee

  • Democrats Hand The Administration Another Win With Cannabis

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    Democrats hand the administration a huge cannabis win due to their inability to understand voters 

    For more than a decade, cannabis reform has stood out as one of the few political issues with overwhelming bipartisan support. Recent surveys show nearly 88% of Americans are open to expanded legalization or meaningful reform, including rescheduling marijuana under federal law. Yet despite controlling the White House during critical moments, it seems the Democrats hand the administration another win with cannabis, allowing the current President to have another landmark victory. That failure now risks becoming another durable point of contrast credited to this administration, while reinforcing a broader pattern of Democratic miscalculation.

    RELATED: What Does Cannabis Rescheduling Mean

    Cannabis reform once appeared to be an inevitable Democratic victory. Under President Barack Obama, federal enforcement softened in tone, but marijuana remained classified as a Schedule I drug—grouped alongside heroin and defined as having “no accepted medical use.” While states rapidly legalized medical and adult-use cannabis, the Obama administration chose to manage the contradiction rather than resolve it. Executive authority existed, but it went unused.

    The same hesitation carried into the Biden era. President Joe Biden campaigned on acknowledging the failures of the drug war and the need for reform, yet once in office, decisive action stalled. Reviews were ordered, agencies were consulted, and timelines stretched. What could have been a clear, popular, legacy-defining achievement—rescheduling cannabis—was instead delayed into political limbo. The moment narrowed, then passed. This lead some in the industry to see it was just an election tool with no real support, despite public opinion.

    The cost of the delay is not merely policy-based; it is political. In today’s environment, contrast matters. By failing to deliver a concrete, broadly supported reform, Democrats allowed Trump to position himself again—however imperfectly—as more open to change through a states’ rights framework. Even symbolic momentum can define a win, and Democrats surrendered the narrative space.

    This failure mirrors a recurring pattern within the Democratic National Committee. Time and again, leadership has struggled to translate clear public opinion into federal action, particularly on issues where Washington caution collides with voter urgency.  Often ignoring mainstream businesses, issues and concerns, the DNC focuses on “beltway buzz” rather than voters. The collapse of support from rural areas so how far away DNC leadership is away from the electorate. Cannabis reform, supported across age groups, regions, and party lines, should have been an exception. Instead, it became another example of internal hesitation and indifference overriding external consensus and popular support.

    That disconnect is now reflected in the numbers: the DNC and congressional Democrats are registering historically low approval ratings in the most recent Quinnipiac poll, underscoring growing voter frustration with inaction on widely supported issues.

    The disconnect is further underscored by the actions of party leaders, especially Senator Chuck Schumer and Cory Booker. Both have spent years presenting themselves as champions of cannabis reform, unveiling sweeping legalization proposals and high-profile press events meant to demonstrate urgency and moral clarity. Yet with rescheduling still unresolved, those efforts now risk appearing performative rather than effective.

    RELATED: Who Is Rep. Andy Harris And Why Does He Hate Cannabis

    By attempting to lead with comprehensive, all-or-nothing legislation, Schumer and Booker arguably misread the political moment. While full legalization remains a worthy goal, rescheduling was achievable, popular, and immediately meaningful. Securing that step first would have delivered tangible relief to businesses, patients, and workers. Instead, the emphasis on symbolism over sequencing allowed momentum to dissipate.

    For everyday Americans and the thousands of mom and pop industry businesses, the consequences remain concrete. Legal cannabis businesses are still locked out of banking. Patients face conflicting laws. Workers remain vulnerable to outdated federal classifications. These are not failures of public will, but of political execution.

    In the end, cannabis rescheduling stands as a cautionary tale. Democrats had public support, executive authority, and time. By inaction, they lost a clear win—and reinforced a growing perception the party too often listens last to voters who are increasingly disenfranchised with the party.

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    Terry Hacienda

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  • ‘You Can’t Give Up Local Races’: DNC Chair visits Georgia on eve of special election

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    Debra Shigley and Jason T. Dickerson will face off in another special election on Tuesday, Sept. 23. This will be the second election the two State Senate candidates have been involved in a month. A Democrat, Shigley, has received support from the Democratic National Committee in the past, but on Saturday, Sept. 20, she got that helping hand on the ground. 

    Debra Shigley (center) delivers a speech at the Canton Square on Thursday, May 1, 2025 in Canton, Georgia. Shigley is running for the open seat in the Georgia State Senate, District 21. Photo by Itoro N. Umontuen/The Atlanta Voice

    Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martic was in Alpharetta and stumped alongside Shigley and others in District 21 on Saturday. The district includes parts of Fulton County (Alpharetta) and Cherokee County (Canton), and though Shigley is popular among voters in both parts of the district (she won 62% of the Fulton County votes, for example), she has to gear up for another election. Winning this special election may not seem like a big deal on the national level, but Martin thinks otherwise. Wins are wins, he says.

    “It’s important for us to realize that we make sure we get Democrats elected on all levels,” Martin told The Atlanta Voice. “That’s where the rubber hits the road.”

    Martin took part in door-knocking in Alpharetta and met Shigley supporters and local voters. He told The Atlanta Voice that he came away impressed with the level of support and interest. The DNC Chair used the phrase “off the charts” to describe the energy around the Democratic candidate.

    “There was a lot of excitement and energy,” Martin said. “It seems like people in this district understand what’s at stake.”

    On August 26, Debra Shigley won nearly 40 percent of the vote during a special election for the District 21 State Senate seat. But that wasn’t enough to get the job done. Two of her opponents, Jason T. Dickerson, a Republican, and Steve West, also a Republican, brought home 17.36% and 17.04% of the votes, respectively. 

    Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens (above) is running for a second term in November. Photo by Kerri Phox/ The Atlanta Voice

    There are more than a half-dozen mayoral elections taking place in majority Black cities around the country in November. Along with Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, and Greensboro, North Carolina are holding elections. There are also mayoral elections taking place in Seattle, Jersey City, New Jersey, Charlotte, and in Martin’s hometown, Minneapolis. 

    Over the past 18 months, Democrats have won or overperformed in more than 40 elections. The phrase “overperform” can be misleading, but it is seen as a sign of momentum, according to Martin.

    “We really believe that when you organize everywhere, you can win anywhere,” Martin said. “We believe we have a shot at winning the election on Tuesday. We have to compete on all levels.” 

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    Donnell Suggs

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  • Democrat XP Lee wins Minnesota House special election to replace assassinated leader

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    Democrat Xp Lee won a special election Tuesday to fill the Minnesota House seat of a top Democratic leader who was assassinated.

    Rep. Melissa Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, held the seat until her death in June.

    Lee is a former Brooklyn Park City Council member. He defeated Republican real estate agent Ruth Bittner in the heavily Democratic district.

    Lee’s win restores a 67-67 tie in the House, and it preserves a power-sharing deal that existed for most of the 2025 legislative session, after the 2024 elections cost House Democrats their majority.

    Former House Speaker Hortman brokered that agreement, which ended Democrats’ three-week boycott. Under the deal, she agreed to end her six-year tenure as speaker and let Republican Lisa Demuth take the position. Hortman then took the title speaker emerita. Most legislative committees became evenly split between Republican and Democratic members, with co-chairs from each party.

    The tie in the House meant some level of bipartisan agreement was required to pass anything in this year’s session.

    In an indication of the national interest in the race, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said Lee’s “commitment to expanding access to education, affordable health care, and good-paying jobs honors the legacy” of Hortman.

    “Across Minnesota, our hearts are still broken by the horrific assassination that stole Melissa and her husband Mark,” Martin, who formerly chaired the state Democratic Party, said in a statement. “Political violence is a scourge that has taken far too many lives. Enough is enough. It must end now. And in every case, each of us has a responsibility to condemn and reject political violence wherever it rears its head.”

    The election to replace Hortman takes place about three months after she and her husband were gunned down in their home by a man impersonating a police officer in Brooklyn Park, a suburb northwest of Minneapolis. Another legislator and his wife also were shot but survived.

    Vance Boelter, 57, faces federal and state murder, attempted murder and other charges in the June 14 attacks.

    Tuesday’s special election also follows another act of political violence, the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah last Wednesday. The shootings have been a concern among voters in the district — and for both candidates.

    Lee said he wants to calm the “charged atmosphere” in the wake of Kirk’s death.

    Bittner said the violence briefly gave her pause about running for office, but she concluded that “there’s no way to solve this problem if we shrink back in fear.”

    Lee, a former Brooklyn Park City Council member, easily won a three-way Democratic primary in August. Bittner, a real estate agent, was the sole Republican on the primary ballot for the seat in the heavily Democratic district.

    Two more special elections will be held Nov. 4 in a pair of Minnesota Senate districts.

    One is to fill the seat vacated by Democratic Sen. Nicole Mitchell, of the St. Paul suburb of Woodbury. She resigned in July after she was convicted of burglarizing her estranged stepmother’s home. The other is for the seat of Republican Sen. Bruce Anderson, of the Minneapolis exurb of Buffalo, who died in July.

    Given that the districts are heavily Democratic and heavily Republican, respectively, control of the Senate isn’t expected to change. But the Democratic candidate for Mitchell’s seat is state Rep. Amanda Hemmingsen-Jaeger, of Woodbury. If she wins, the governor will have to call another special election to fill her House seat.

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  • String of bomb threats force evacuations at HBCUs & DNC HQ after Charlie Kirk shooting

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    The Democratic National Committee and several historically Black colleges and universities have been forced to evacuate or have locked down after receiving threats the day after far-right pundit Charlie Kirk was fatally shot at an event on a Utah campus.

    Capitol Police responded to a “potential security concern” at the DNC headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, which was deemed to be a non-credible bomb threat.

    “This afternoon, there was a bomb threat to DNC HQ that was determined to not be credible by the U.S. Capitol Police,” a DNC spokesperson told Axios. “Out of an abundance of caution, Capitol Police is conducting an interior sweep of the building. As DNC Chair Ken Martin has said, political violence in every form has no place in our country. We are grateful to the U.S. Capitol Police and DNC building security for responding quickly and professionally.”

    Meanwhile, several HBCUs went under lockdown Thursday, including Alabama State University, Virginia State University, Hampton University, Southern University, Bethune-Cookman Univeristy, and Clark Atlanta University, according to local news outlets.

    Alabama State announced it would be suspending all campus activities on Thursday after a “terroristic threat” was directed at the campus. Police have since issued an all clear, though campus will remain closed. Southern University has also been cleared, but activities will main canceled throughout the weekend.

    Shelter-in-place warnings have been lofted at Spelman College and Clark Atlanta University, the Atlanta Police Department told Atlanta News First. Spelman officials told the outlet that while no threats have been made toward the college, due to their proximity to other universities facing threats they have “increased security presence across campus.”

    Virginia State “remains on lockdown as we continue to prioritize the safety of our students, faculty, and staff,” it said in a statement, adding that “VSU Police, in coordination with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, is actively investigating the credibility of the threat received earlier today.”

    Hampton University also canceled classes for Thursday and Friday, saying in a statement, “Hampton University has received notice of a potential threat and has ceased all non-essential activity, effective immediately.”

    The Daytona Beach Police Department said in a statement that it is “actively investigating a reported threat directed at Bethune-Cookman University” and that “the campus has been placed on lockdown while officers work to ensure the safety of the students and staff.”

    While law enforcement has not confirmed what motivated the threats, they come one day after Kirk, the anti-LGBTQ+ commentator who founded Turning Point USA, died after being shot during a campus event at Utah Valley University. Despite no suspects or motivations being known, conservatives online have blamed “the left” for Kirk’s murder and vowed revenge.

    Democratic Rep. Troy Carter of Louisiana, where Southern University is located, strongly condemned the threats against Black institutions in a statement posted to social media, saying that “HBCUs are pillars of excellence, resilience, and progress. They have nurtured leaders, broken down barriers, and carried forward the torch of justice and equality in America. Any threat against them is a threat against us all.”

    “I am calling on the full weight of the federal government — including the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI — to utilize every available resource to identify, apprehend, and prosecute those responsible,” Carter said. “These attacks cannot be tolerated, minimized, or ignored. They must be met with swift and decisive action.”

    This article originally appeared on Advocate: String of bomb threats force evacuations at HBCUs & DNC HQ after Charlie Kirk shooting

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  • Democrats scramble for a redistricting counteroffensive against Trump

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    Democrats are scrambling to keep their nascent crusade against President Donald Trump’s national redistricting push from fizzling out.

    House Democrats are considering establishing an organization to raise and spend for their remapping efforts as they look to counter an aggressive Republican move that could determine control of the chamber next year, according to three people granted anonymity to describe private conversations. And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has privately discussed redistricting with blue-state governors, according to another person.

    The Center for American Progress is urging blue states to abandon their independent redistricting commissions. And, through private strategy sessions and public appeals, Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu is asking Democrats across red and blue states to take a no-holds-barred approach to resisting GOP redistricting. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin praised Wu during a meeting in Minneapolis last week for “igniting a national movement within this party.”

    “This is an all-out call to arms,” Wu, who helped lead Texas Democrats’ quorum break, said in an interview. “That chorus of ‘everyone needs to get off their ass and do something’ is growing louder and louder. And more and more elected Democrats who are seen as doing nothing — their commitment to our country is going to be questioned.”

    But Democrats face a lopsided fight.

    They’re hamstrung by constitutional restrictions or independent commissions in some states, while Republicans are generally free of those legal barriers and have leadership trifectas in Indiana, Florida, Missouri and Ohio, promising state lawmakers fewer restrictions to draw Democratic rivals out of their seats.

    Against this backdrop, Democrats are grasping for ways to counter Trump’s maximalist campaign to redraw congressional maps to protect Republicans’ three-seat House majority in the midterms. With a counteroffensive already underway in California, Democrats are turning to other blue states to take up the charge — and finding some open-minded participants in governors with 2028 ambitions.

    Democrats see the promise of netting three seats in Maryland and Illinois, whose governors — Wes Moore and JB Pritzker, respectively — have spoken with Jeffries about redistricting, according to one person granted anonymity to describe those private conversations. The minority party is also eyeing a pickup opportunity in Utah, after a judge ruled the state must redraw its map. Jeffries has also spoken with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, though any changes in the Empire State are unlikely before 2028 and thus wouldn’t impact the upcoming midterms.

    The blowback started as a tit-for-tat response to Trump’s efforts to grow the GOP’s majority next year, kicking off with a push for five more red House seats in Texas. Now Missouri is moving ahead with a new map as the White House bears down on Indiana.

    One national Democratic operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the tumultuous situation, described jumping into the redistricting arms race as “the price for entry to the 2028 presidential primary.”

    Caifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose popularity is soaring as he emerges as Democrats’ remapping champion, has been encouraging his counterparts to follow his lead, saying at POLITICO’s California Summit Wednesday, “We’re going to have to see other governors move in a similar direction.”

    An array of party officials and organizations are lining up.

    The National Democratic Redistricting Committee is fielding calls, providing technical support and legal expertise to state leaders looking at their own congressional maps, according to a person directly familiar with their efforts.

    Wu, the Texas House Democrats leader, discussed messaging and other tactics with legislators from seven states where Republicans are eyeing redistricting during a Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee strategy session last week, per a summary of the call provided to POLITICO. And former President Barack Obama called Texas state Rep. James Talarico — a potential U.S. Senate candidate — to voice support for his role in his state’s redistricting battle.

    But in some states, messaging is all Democrats can do. Republicans in Indiana, for example, hold a supermajority and can pass any map without a single Democrat in the chamber.

    It’s not just Democratic officials who are getting involved. Unions that banded together to condemn Republicans’ gerrymandering in Texas are now pledging to put manpower behind Newsom’s ballot campaign in California and holding strategy discussions about combating Trump’s next moves in other states. And activists affiliated with the progressive group Indivisible have made roughly 5,000 calls to governors and lawmakers across 15 states with Democratic trifectas urging them to responsively redistrict.

    “This isn’t something we had to go pitch people on the importance of. This is something people were banging down our doors about,” said Andrew O’Neill, Indivisible’s national advocacy director.

    And it “does seem that this is something that has broken through with these governors and has the potential to create what I’ve been calling a productive ambition,” O’Neill said. “These people might be thinking about future job prospects for themselves and they view being a leader in this fight as a route to do that.”

    Democrats’ pressure campaign is struggling in Colorado, Washington and Oregon, whose governors have all but closed the door to redistricting, and the party lacks the legislative means or the interest to change their maps.

    Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib sent a recent memo to county officers outlining the near-insurmountable challenges in mimicking California’s ballot campaign, according to a copy obtained by POLITICO. Petitions attempting to circumvent the state’s independent redistricting commission are being filed without the state party’s backing.

    Washington Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen shut down the possibility in a letter to a concerned constituent shared with POLITICO, noting Washington’s Democratic-heavy congressional delegation already does not reflect the political makeup of the state. And state Democratic Party Chair Shasti Conrad acknowledged “lots of pressure and desire” to take up redistricting, but pointed to a broad recognition that it’s “practicably impossible.”

    On the East Coast, New Jersey Democrats are similarly hamstrung by state constitutional issues and though Moore told POLITICO “everything’s on the table” when it comes to redistricting, a state court tossed Maryland Democrats’ previous attempt to gerrymander.

    But Democratic activists are increasingly discontent to let anyone in their party sit on the sidelines as they fight what they view as Trump’s latest power grab.

    “These are serious times, and I’m not sure how much more serious things have to be for [Democratic governors] to get off their ass and get in the batters box and swing for the fences,” said California-based Democratic strategist Michael Trujillo. “This is infuriating.”

    Natalie Fertig and Brakkton Booker contributed to this report.

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  • Split Screen Moment: Kamala Harris Giving Milwaukee Speech On Second Night Of DNC

    Split Screen Moment: Kamala Harris Giving Milwaukee Speech On Second Night Of DNC

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    EXCLUSIVE: As delegates are holding a ceremonial roll call to nominate Kamala Harris — perhaps the first with a DJ’s soundtrack — the vice president will be giving a speech in Milwaukee.

    Expect a split screen moment, including Harris beamed into the United Center from the must-win Badger State, according to a source in the campaign. Networks also are expected to provide some coverage of Harris’ address.

    In the United Center, each seat was fitted with blinking lights as each state was called. Harris was officially nominated in a virtual roll call earlier this month, so this is ceremonial. Producers instead staged a much more jamming proceeding, with celebrities such as Sean Astin announcing the votes for Indiana and Wendell Pierce for Louisiana. When Georgia announced its vote, Lil Jon made a surprise performance in the aisles.

    With some Dr. Dre likely, California, Harris’ home state, is expected to put Harris over the top, with Governor Gavin Newsom announcing the tally.

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    Ted Johnson

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  • Biden builds early advertising edge as Trump spends millions on legal fees

    Biden builds early advertising edge as Trump spends millions on legal fees

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    (CNN) — Joe Biden holds a big edge on the airwaves over Donald Trump in the opening weeks of their general election matchup. The president and his allies nearly tripled his rival’s network in ad spending over the past month and a half while Trump has had to devote millions of campaign funds to legal expenses.

    From March 6 – the day after Super Tuesday when Trump effectively secured the 2024 GOP presidential nomination – through Sunday, Biden’s campaign and other Democratic advertisers spent $27.2 million on advertising for the presidential race, while the Trump campaign and GOP advertisers spent about $9.3 million, according to AdImpact data.

    The Biden campaign’s ad spending has included millions in key battleground states such as Michigan ($4.1 million), Pennsylvania ($3.9 million), Arizona ($2.5 million), Wisconsin ($2.2 million) and Georgia ($2.2 million). The Biden network has used its plentiful airtime to promote the administration’s first-term record and to slam Trump, focusing on key issues such as the cost of living and abortion rights.

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    David Wright and CNN

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  • The RNC chairwoman calls for unity as the party faces a cash crunch and attacks by some Trump allies

    The RNC chairwoman calls for unity as the party faces a cash crunch and attacks by some Trump allies

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    LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) — Facing a cash crunch and harsh criticism from a faction of far-right conservatives, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Friday called for the party to unite behind the goal of defeating President Joe Biden.

    McDaniel spoke at the RNC’s winter meeting in Las Vegas behind closed doors on Friday, addressing a gathering of state chairmen and other top party members in what’s expected to be a critical swing state in the November election.

    “We Republicans will stick together, as united as the union our party long ago fought to preserve,” McDaniel said, according to people who were in the room and disclosed her remarks on condition of anonymity to discuss a private gathering. “We’ll have our battles ahead of us, but they’re good battles, and they’re worth fighting for.”

    McDaniel’s appeal for unity comes as former President Donald Trump and his allies push the party to get behind him and effectively end the primary even though he still faces a final major rival, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. While McDaniel has fought off opponents before, winning a competitive race for a fourth term as chairwoman last year, she’s now facing Trump supporters on the far right who are creating parallel efforts that could conflict with the national party.

    Campaign finance disclosures released this week show the RNC had just $8 million in the bank and $1 million in debt. While the Trump campaign heads into 2024 with $42 million cash on hand, Biden’s political operation reported raising $97.1 million in the final months of 2024 across the various committees it uses to fundraise and ended the year with $117.4 million on hand.

    Biden is already working with the Democratic National Committee, which partners automatically with the incumbent president. An effort by Trump allies to have the RNC this week declare Trump the “presumptive nominee” was withdrawn after it drew criticism because Haley is still running.

    Trump has previously backed McDaniel, though his campaign and the RNC have disagreed at times. Trump declined to participate in party-sponsored primary debates before this year’s Iowa caucuses.

    But there’s long been tension between the party establishment and some people who consider themselves Trump’s strongest supporters.

    McDaniel faced a week of withering attacks launched by far-right figures spearheaded by the group Turning Point, a glitzy and well-funded organization founded by 30-year-old media figure Charlie Kirk, who was part of an unsuccessful effort to oust McDaniel last year.

    Days before the party’s winter meeting convened, Turning Point hosted a counterprograming event and training session at a casino across Las Vegas Boulevard dubbed “Restoring National Confidence,” a play on the RNC’s initials. The invite-only event drew nearly 400 attendees aligned with the group, including some RNC members, as well as state and local Republican Party chairs.

    Kirk, who hosts a popular radio show, is part of a faction of conservatives who’ve openly stoked a feud with the RNC, which they have blasted for spending lavishly and being out of touch with the party’s grassroots base. That, they argue, led to losses in 2018 and 2020 as well as underwhelming results in 2022.

    Some Turning Point supporters have become RNC members, while the group is actively recruiting others, an effort that, if successful, would give the group more sway over the direction of the party and perhaps a stronger say in the party’s chair.

    “We know a pack of losers when we see it: top to bottom, the entire RNC staff in its current form,” Kirk said Thursday on his radio show.

    “They don’t even know what winning is,” he added.

    Inside the RNC meeting, some members, including those who have been critical of McDaniel, said the Turning Point effort was ill-advised.

    “Attacking the brand and the chair doesn’t advance our fundamental goal of winning elections,” said Mississippi national committeeman Henry Barbour, who has at times criticized McDaniel.

    And McDaniel’s allies note that the Democratic National Committee was in debt to the tune of $5 million in the early days of the 2020 race, when the party was trying to return a Democrat to the White House.

    Turning Point is looking to expand its influence and reach beyond the youth movement, with mixed results. The group has struggled in its adopted home state of Arizona, where many of its preferred candidates failed to win in statewide races that many saw as winnable.

    Its leaders have also come under scrutiny over their own spending practices, including charter jet travel, offering lucrative salaries and paying to host Kirk’s wedding reception in 2021. Turning Point is currently trying to raise $108 million for a three-state get-out-the-vote campaign in Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia that would operate parallel to efforts that are already underway.

    RNC spokeswoman Emma Vaughn dismissed the challenges as coming from people complaining online.

    “Outside noise might be what keyboard warriors and the Democrats are focused on,” she said. “Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and the entire Republican National Committee are laser-focused on beating Biden this fall.”

    ___

    Slodysko reported from Washington.

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  • Can Biden Win a Primary He Ignored?

    Can Biden Win a Primary He Ignored?

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    As he stood on a frigid New Hampshire street corner on Saturday morning, Jim Demers was trying to persuade me that the fate of the republic hinges on today’s presidential primary—specifically, whether more people write “Joe Biden” on their ballot than fill in the bubble next to the names of his Democratic challengers. “This is an election like we’ve never seen before. This is one where democracy is on the ballot,” Demers, a lobbyist and former state representative, told me. “This is bigger than New Hampshire. This is about the future of America.”

    It all sounded a bit overwrought. The Democratic Party has declared New Hampshire’s primary “meaningless,” and no delegates will be awarded based on the outcome. Democracy might be on the ballot, but the sitting president and the party’s all-but-certain nominee is not. Biden declined to file for the election or campaign in the state because of last year’s decision by the Democratic National Committee to ditch Iowa and New Hampshire as the earliest-voting states in favor of South Carolina. New Hampshire insisted on holding its first-in-the-nation primary anyway.

    To Demers and a small but energetic group of party activists, the fight over the primary calendar is beside the point. As they see it, the results of today’s vote carry outsize significance—both to Biden’s viability in the fall and to the future of New Hampshire’s century-old tradition as a presidential proving ground. They are the organizers of the “Write-In Biden” campaign, a statewide grassroots effort aimed at offering the president a show of support—even if symbolic—to help him avoid an embarrassing result that could deepen Democratic worries about his electoral standing.

    Read: How Biden might recover

    Given the unusual nature of the primary, the line between victory and humiliation remains murky. But Biden’s backers want to see him easily hold off Representative Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson. “We want to make sure that headlines the day after the election are ‘He Wasn’t Even on the Ballot, and He Won. That’s Amazing!’” Donna McCay, a volunteer who was holding a Write-In Biden sign in Hampton, New Hampshire, told me.

    Spending $70,000 over the past three months, Demers and a small group of operatives have mailed postcards, taken out ads, and issued yard signs instructing Democratic and independent voters how to cast a ballot for Biden. (It’s pretty simple: Fill in the oval next to “Write-In” and scrawl in “Joe Biden,” or even just “Biden.”) They’ve received help from a parade of local and national Democrats seeking to boost their own profiles in New Hampshire, but none officially from the Biden campaign.

    Over the weekend, dozens of New Hampshire Democrats packed house parties and braved near-zero wind chills to stand outside and hold up signs alerting drivers to the write-in option. Many of those standing in the cold were almost as old as the two candidates likely to face off in the general election.

    Polls in New Hampshire have shown a big advantage for Biden over Phillips and Williamson, but few people know what to make of them—incumbent presidents generally don’t rely on supporters to wage a write-in campaign on their behalf. One Democrat involved with the effort told me they wanted to see Biden crack 50 percent, which would match Donald Trump’s showing in Iowa, where the former president spent millions of dollars campaigning.

    New Hampshire is fertile ground for a campaign like this. Its population is among the nation’s most highly educated and civically engaged—candidates in New Hampshire like to joke that “politics is the state sport.” It also helps that Biden is not a particularly hard name to spell.

    Yet the write-in campaign is battling a number of obstacles in addition to Biden’s challengers. Anti-Trump independent voters, who can participate in either primary, must decide whether to back Biden or cast their ballot for Nikki Haley in the GOP contest. Biden allies argue that Haley’s chances of overtaking Trump are already shot. “You can try to game this process, but Biden is the only person who can beat Donald Trump,” John Carty, a Biden backer, told me. “A vote for Haley here might improve her showing in New Hampshire, but will it improve her chances of being the nominee? Most of us tend to think not.”

    Then there is the lingering anger over Biden’s abandonment of the state. When the DNC told the state’s party chair that its primary would be “non-binding,” “meaningless,” and “detrimental,” New Hampshire’s Republican attorney general sent the national party a cease-and-desist letter.

    Biden’s decision to stand by the DNC and skip the primary risks alienating constituents in a swing state whose four electoral votes could matter in a close presidential race. “It was a stupid political decision, equivalent to shooting yourself in the foot,” Colin Van Ostern, the Democratic nominee for governor in 2016, told me. “But I also vote for people I don’t agree with 100 percent plenty of times. And to me, it’s not complicated: Our democracy is at risk, and he is the one who can beat Trump.” (Both the Biden campaign and the DNC declined to comment.)

    Phillips has tried to capitalize on Biden’s absence, occasionally to the point of hyperbole. “What was done to all of you is one of the most egregious affronts to democracy I’ve ever known in my lifetime,” Phillips told a packed audience at a restaurant in Hampton on Sunday, drawing applause. “A write-in vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Donald Trump, because he will lose to him.” As he spoke, a family in the front row held up posters distributed by Phillips’s campaign with an image of Biden on one side under the word MISSING. The other side read, Joe wrote you off. Why write him in?

    Read: Dean Phillips has a warning for Democrats

    The showing for Phillips—more than 100 people crowded in, shoulder to shoulder—suggests that his campaign has some momentum. But the turnout might reflect as much political tourism as electoral support: Of the first dozen or so people I encountered, I found residents of Massachusetts and Connecticut, visitors from Denmark, and a student group from Macon, Georgia, but not a single registered New Hampshire voter.

    If nothing else, the Biden write-in campaign has succeeded in generating publicity for its cause; plenty of reporters and cameras trailed its volunteers and surrogates throughout the weekend. The risk, of course, is that a strong result for Phillips—a close second, say, or more than 40 percent of the vote—would seem more meaningful than it might have otherwise, making his candidacy more of a genuine threat to Biden.

    But the president’s backers were growing more confident as the election neared. Despite his snub of New Hampshire, general-election polling in the state has shown Biden ahead of Trump and in far better shape than in other battlegrounds. Some Democrats are hoping that a decisive win for the presidential non-candidate will put New Hampshire back in the national party’s good graces and perhaps even restore its first-in-the-nation position for 2028. “If Joe Biden has a good win on a write-in effort, that gives New Hampshire a whole new story to tell,” Demers said.

    As we spoke, more than 30 volunteers were holding up signs by the road. Some drivers honked in solidarity; others jeered in opposition. Representative Ro Khanna of California, a Biden surrogate, came over with donuts and kibitzed with the volunteers and reporters. Compared with the grand tradition of New Hampshire primaries, the display was enthusiastic but tiny.

    If New Hampshire’s show of support was so crucial, I asked Demers, shouldn’t Biden be here? “I just want the president to be here next fall,” he replied.

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    Russell Berman

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  • First in the Nation—And Last?

    First in the Nation—And Last?

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    Donald Trump shares an essential trait with the voters of New Hampshire: a craving for flattery and affirmation.

    Residents here are accustomed to parades of candidates trekking up every four years to tell them how sacred their first-in-the-nation primary is, how discerning their famously “independent” and “contrarian” voters are. Politicians strain endlessly to convey how vital New Hampshire is to the process.

    But things feel precarious and a bit upside down here these days—more final whimper than first salvo.

    I landed in Manchester on Friday afternoon and found the place almost numb with abandonment. Elm Street, the “main drag” of New Hampshire’s biggest city, which is usually good for a few candidate sightings and media scrums, was quiet. Once the marquee stopover on the presidential tour, this original colony felt neglected in the final weekend before today’s primary, and well past its glory.

    “Where is everyone?” I asked the woman next to me at the counter of the downtown Red Arrow Diner on Friday. The century-old greasy spoon on Lowell Street has served as a landmark for visiting political hacks and as a reliable backdrop for candidate photo ops.

    “Ryan Binkley was just here,” my stool-neighbor informed me. I Googled Ryan Binkley. He is a pastor from Texas who says he is running for president because God called him to. Who is Ryan Binkley? the yard signs say (good enough to finish fifth in Iowa, apparently).

    You can see why the once-pandered-to populace of the Granite State might feel unloved. Last year, the Democrats—led by the current president of the United States—dumped New Hampshire in favor of South Carolina as the party’s official first primary. The scorned New England mainstay scheduled its primary anyway, even though the Democratic National Committee said it would not recognize the results or award any delegates derived from this unholy action. President Joe Biden has not campaigned in the state, and his name is not on the ballot.

    Read: Trump is about to steamroll Nikki Haley

    Now Republicans keep dropping out, leaving the GOP race down to Trump, who routed the field in Iowa last week, and the former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley (plus Binkley and a few others). Campaign events were still occurring in New Hampshire in this final week, but far fewer than usual; Trump, and to a lesser extent Haley, drew most of the attention and the biggest crowds.

    The former president seemed both rambling and serene. “When I fly over a blue state, two days later, I get a subpoena,” Trump said at the start of a rally in Concord on Friday night. Technically, New Hampshire is itself a blue state, or at least it has been in the past several presidential elections; Trump lost it in both 2016 and 2020. But things were feeling quite safe here for Trump in the primary. Recent polls showed him with double-digit leads over Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who was still in the race heading into the weekend but barely bothered with New Hampshire.

    “DeSantis, God bless him. He’s a remainder at this point,” New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, a Republican, told me at a Haley event in a Milford restaurant on Friday afternoon. “What happened to this guy?” Trump asked of DeSantis a few hours later in Concord. “One of the great self-destructions I think I’ve ever witnessed.”

    At the very least, DeSantis understood that the prevailing dynamic of the Republican Party over the past eight years has stayed intact. “You can be the most worthless Republican in America,” he said in one of his final campaign stops in Iowa, discharging a few nuggets of clarity as he approached the end. “If you kiss the ring, he’ll say you are wonderful.” The governor quit the race on Sunday and, yes, kissed the ring on the way out, endorsing Trump.

    Read: Ron DeSantis’s cold, hard reality

    This followed a week’s procession of white flags. Former Trump “opponents” kept endorsing the former president—Vivek Ramaswamy last Monday; the governor of North Dakota, whoever that was, the day before; Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina on Friday, joining Trump in Concord. By Sunday, New Hampshire felt like the last stand of a battle that had never started.

    Throughout the weekend, Trump tried to assure his supporters that he knows how important the state is, even though he would almost certainly rather spend his time elsewhere; he described New Hampshire as “a drug-infested den” in a 2017 phone call with the then-president of Mexico. He has been holding nightly rallies across the state since Friday, telling everyone how special they are, and the admiration is of course mutual.

    “I’m thrilled to be back in the home of first-in-the-nation,” Trump said at his Concord rally. Any candidate who comes to New Hampshire cannot utter those four words—first in the nation—enough. And Trump did, four times in the space of a few sentences.

    “You know who kept you first in the nation?” Trump asked the crowd.

    “Trump!” he said, uttering his own name along with some in the audience.

    “But I just want to tell you, you’re first in the nation,” he said. “You’re always going be first in the nation!”

    Read: What is Nikki Haley even talking about?

    For her part, Haley has been intent on convincing everyone that New Hampshire is still a race at all. A two-person race, to be precise. “Between Nikki and Trump,” Sununu repeated, like a fleece-wearing parrot, as he accompanied Haley across the state, four or five stops a day. He and Haley kept contrasting this particular two-person race with the one most Americans are dreading, between Trump and Biden.

    “People don’t want two 80-year-olds running for president,” Haley said in a brief press conference Friday at a diner in Amherst (Trump is 77; Biden is 81). She devoted much of the session to scolding the media for not properly correcting the false things Trump says about her. “Y’all need to call him out,” she urged. She also theorized that although 70 percent of Americans don’t want to be subjected to a Trump-Biden rematch, “70 percent of the media does want a rematch.”

    This is dubious, for what it’s worth. If anything, “the media” wanted a competitive primary campaign—some genuine uncertainty and drama, and a reason beyond obligation to keep tuning in.

    Like Trump, Dean Phillips is happy to fill the vacuum of love for New Hampshire. “We’ve got to practice democracy,” the Democratic representative from Minnesota said at a Nashua senior center on Saturday afternoon. Phillips, a wealthy former gelato baron, is waging a long-shot campaign against Biden—actually, a write-in version of Biden, who, because he’s not on the ballot, can be voted for only that way by New Hampshirites willing to overlook the president’s ghosting of their state.

    “Why write in Biden?” Phillips asked at the event, if Biden is “writing off New Hampshire?” Polite chuckles, maybe a moan or two. Phillips also suggested that Biden was “taking the Granite State for granted.” (Dean Phillips: The Dad Joke candidate!)

    Read: 90 minutes in a van with Dean Phillips

    Back in Concord, Trump had gone even further in conveying his admiration for his host and its traditions—reaching all the way back to the Civil War. Uh-oh. Haley did this last month, and it didn’t go well. But Trump—student of history that he is—had an important lesson to share. “They said the people from New Hampshire were very tough fighters,” Trump said. “Did you know that?” (No one seemed to.) He said he had read that somewhere. “History,” he continued. “Very tough fighters.”

    “You won a lot of battles. That was a nasty war.”

    He later proceeded with a strange flurry of comments about Haley, ridiculing her failure to protect the U.S. Capitol on January 6—wait, did he mean Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the House? Maybe, but Trump kept saying Haley’s name, over and over.

    “They,” he said, don’t want to talk about how Haley was in charge of security on January 6.

    He also said that Haley—this time he apparently did mean Nikki Haley, the one he’s running against—was not “capable,” “tough,” “smart,” or “respected” enough to be president and handle Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, or Kim Jong Un. “Very fine people,” Trump called them.

    In a different time, this would be the kind of weird front-runner face-plant that could turn a New Hampshire primary on its head. Haley did her best to keep Trump’s bizarre comments aloft over the weekend. But mostly they were met with the usual resignation of a party with little will to fight, drifting toward the inevitable.

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    Mark Leibovich

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  • Journalist Disputes Congressman’s Account Of Violence At Gaza Cease-Fire Protest

    Journalist Disputes Congressman’s Account Of Violence At Gaza Cease-Fire Protest

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    A congressman’s claims that “pro-terrorist,” “pro-Hamas” protesters pepper-sprayed police and attempted to break into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington on Wednesday night are incorrect, according to a journalist who covered and recorded the protest.

    About 150 protesters organized by progressive groups gathered outside a fundraiser at the DNC to demand a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war. They laid out electric candles to symbolize the more than 11,000 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza since Israel began a bombing campaign after a surprise attack by Hamas on Oct. 7. A group of the protesters were seen engaged in civil disobedience by linking arms and blocking the entrance to the DNC.

    Their goal “was for people inside the building to come out and see our peaceful vigil and hear our songs and requests for a ceasefire,” IfNotNow, a progressive Jewish group, said in a statement. “We had a team prepared to speak with congress people on their way out, while the rest of us intended to continue singing and praying.” IfNotNow had organized the protest with Jewish Voices for Peace Action and the Democratic Socialists of America.

    However, videos show U.S. Capitol Police officers forcefully removing protesters from the building’s entrance.

    When Semafor reporter Dave Weigel, who was outside the DNC covering and recording video of the protest, got home that night, he was surprised to see a social media post from Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) claiming that “pro-terrorist, anti-#Israel,” “pro-terrorist” protesters had pepper-sprayed police officers and tried to break into the DNC.

    Sherman repeated his claim that protesters had pepper-sprayed police officers in a CNN interview on Wednesday night. Anchor Abby Phillip initially noted that she did not know who deployed the pepper spray but later repeated, without additional evidence, U.S. Capitol Police claims that protesters had sprayed officers.

    Sherman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    “I had eyes on the door the whole time,” Weigel told HuffPost in an interview. Protesters “were standing in front of the door, they were trying to block the door. They were not trying to break in.”

    “When people try to break into the building, they usually don’t have their backs turned to the door,” Weigel added.

    Video posted by Weigel and protest organizers show demonstrators standing side-by-side with their arms linked and their backs facing the entrance, singing “Which Side Are You On?” More than 24 hours after the protest, no video or signs of an attempted break-in have emerged, Weigel noted.

    Weigel added that although he could not account for every protester present, he did not see any protester deploy pepper spray against a police officer. He did, however, see the police use pepper spray, which has been documented in photos.

    U.S. Capitol Police tweeted on Wednesday that it responded to people “illegally and violently” protesting near the DNC and evacuated all lawmakers. The police said that six officers were treated for injuries ranging “from minor cuts to being pepper sprayed to being punched” and that one person was arrested for assaulting an officer. Because of how pepper spray disperses, it is possible that police officers could have been injured by their own pepper spray.

    IfNotNow spokesperson Eva Borgwardt said in a statement on Wednesday that Sherman was “spreading dangerous and reckless misinformation about our nonviolent movement.”

    “Calling hundreds of progressive Jews fighting for peace, many of whom have family members in Israel, ’pro-Hamas’ is beyond the pale and the Congressman should apologize for his remarks,” Borgwardt said.

    House Democratic leaders said in a statement that some protesters “exceeded a peaceful demonstration” but did not echo Sherman’s allegations of an attempt to break into the building.

    Weigel, who has extensively covered political protests, noted that the groups that organized this demonstration “are known quantities” that do not have a reputation of engaging in violence.

    Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which an estimated 1,200 Israelis were killed and more than 200 were taken hostage, Israel has engaged in a devastating bombing campaign and ground operations in Gaza. More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed, including an estimated 4,600 children. The United Nations has warned of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza, where supply shortages are so dire that doctors have been forced to remove premature babies from incubators and civilians in the Palestinian enclave face starvation.

    A majority of people in the U.S. support a cease-fire, according to recent polling, but just 24 members of Congress signed a Wednesday letter urging President Joe Biden to work to establish a cease-fire. The president has repeatedly rejected calls for a cease-fire, despite hundreds of administration employees urging him to do so.

    IfNotNow plans to continue protesting, the group said in a statement. “People of all faiths and backgrounds will continue as long as we need in order to pressure our elected officials to take action to save lives.”

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  • The Case for a Primary Challenge to Joe Biden

    The Case for a Primary Challenge to Joe Biden

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    Joe Biden seems like he’s running again, God love him.

    He will most likely make this official in the next couple of months, and with the support of nearly every elected Democrat in range of a microphone. That is how things are typically done in Washington: The White House shall make you primary-proof. The gods of groupthink have decreed as much.

    Unless some freethinking Democrat comes along and chooses to ignore the groupthink.

    In private, of course, many elected Democrats say Biden is too old to run again and that they wish he’d step away—which aligns with what large majorities of Democrats and independents have been telling pollsters for months. The public silence around the president’s predicament has become tiresome and potentially catastrophic for the Democratic Party. Somebody should make a refreshing nuisance of themselves and involve the voters in this decision.

    Yes, this would be a radical move, and would anger a bunch of Democrats inside the various power terrariums of D.C., starting with the biggest one of all, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. There would be immediate blowback from donors, the Democratic National Committee, and other party institutions. But do it anyway. Preferably before Biden makes his final decision, while there’s an opening. If approached deftly, the gambit could benefit the president, the party, and even the challenger’s own standing, win or lose.

    David A. Graham: The 2024 U.S. presidential race: A cheat sheet

    There has to  be one good Challenger X out there from the party’s supposed “deep bench,” right? Someone who is compelling, formidable, and younger than, say, 65. Someone who is not Marianne Williamson. Someone who would be unfailingly gracious to Biden and reverential of his career—even while trying to end it.

    Before we start tossing out names, let’s establish a big to be sure. To be sure, primaries can be very bad for presidents seeking reelection. There is good reason no incumbent has been subjected to a serious intraparty challenge in more than three decades—not since the Republican Pat Buchanan launched a populist incursion against President George H. W. Bush in 1992. A dozen years earlier, President Jimmy Carter had endured an acrid primary challenge from Senator Edward Kennedy. Both Carter and Bush managed to hold off their challengers, but they came away battered and wound up losing their general elections.

    Biden, however, is a special case, for two reasons. The first concerns the disconnect between how affectionately most Democrats view him versus their desire to move on from him. Recent surveys show that 60 percent of Democrats don’t want Biden to run again. These spigots of cold water in the polls have been accompanied by icy buckets of liberal commentary and chilly assessments from (mostly) anonymous elected Democrats in the press. By contrast, large majorities of Republicans wanted Donald Trump to seek reelection in 2020, and an overwhelming consensus of Democrats wanted Barack Obama to run again in 2012. Same with Republicans and George W. Bush in 2004, and Democrats and Bill Clinton in 1996.

    Why should Biden not enjoy the same coronation? He’s done a good job in the eyes of the people who voted for him in 2020. His party overperformed in the midterms. He seems to be humming along fine—feisty State of the Union here, muscular visit to Ukraine there, and endless jokers to the right. He has achieved important things, has clearly enjoyed the gig, and appears quite eager for more. The difference in Biden’s case, of course, goes directly to the second reason for his special predicament. It begins with an 8.

    Allow me to point out, as if you don’t already know this, that Biden is old. He is 80 now, will be 82 on Inauguration Day 2025, and will hit 86 if he makes it all the way through a second term. He was born during the Roosevelt administration (Franklin, not Teddy, but still).

    The Delaware Corvette has flipped through the odometer a time or two. I’ve pointed this out before, in this publication. The White House did not like that story. But it was true then, and it’s truer now—by eight months, and a lot more Democrats are getting a lot more anxious.

    “This is not a knock on Joe Biden, just a wish for competition,” says Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, one of a tiny number of elected Democrats who have expressed on-the-record trepidation about Biden’s plans. Phillips couches the absurdity of this in terms of free enterprise. “In the business world, if the dominant brand in a category had favorability ratings like the current president does, you would see a number of established brands jump into that category,” Phillips told me. “Believe me, there are literally hundreds in Congress who would say the same thing,” he said. “But they simply won’t fucking say a word.”

    Read: Why Biden shouldn’t run in 2024

    Here’s the deal, as Biden would say. No one wants to be accused of messing around with established practices when the alternative—very possibly Donald Trump—is so terrifying. But just as Trump has intimidated so many Republicans into submission, he also has paralyzed Democrats into extreme risk aversion. This has fostered an unhealthy capitulation to musty assumptions. And if you believe groupthink can’t be horribly wrong, I’ve got some weapons of mass destruction to show you in Iraq, not to mention a Black man who will never be elected president and, for that matter, a reality-TV star who won’t either.

    The big riddle is: Who? Let’s assess an (extremely) hypothetical primary field. First, eliminate Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, and any other member of Biden’s administration from consideration. Such an uprising against the boss would represent an irreparably disloyal and unseemly act and simply would not happen. Let’s also eliminate Senator Bernie Sanders from consideration, because been there, done that (twice), and he’s actually Biden’s senior by a year.

    Otherwise, indulge me in a bit of mentioning. Here is a hodgepodge of possible primary nuisances: Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer; Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey; Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut; Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; former Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio; Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York; California Governor Gavin Newsom; Maryland Governor Wes Moore. This is a noncomprehensive list.

    Let’s take the first Challenger X on the list, the newly reelected Whitmer, who, for the record, says she will not be running in 2024, regardless of what Biden does. She declared as much after her double-digit crushing of Republican Tudor Dixon in November. “Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says she is committed to a full second term,” reads the report in Bridge Michigan, the local publication to which she revealed her plans. The article refers to the 46th president as “aging Democratic incumbent Joe Biden.”

    What might it look like if Whitmer did make a run at said “aging Democratic incumbent”? The how dare you types would be unpleasantly aroused. Words like ingrate, disloyal, and opportunist would be hurled in her face. She would be blamed for creating a turbulent situation for the self-styled “party of grown-ups,” and at a time when they can credibly portray Republicans as an irresponsible brigade of nutbags, cranks, and chaos agents. Whitmer would also, implicitly, be accused of not “waiting her turn.” Just as Obama was in 2008, when he opted to skip the line and sought the Democratic nomination, even though the groupthink memo at the time stipulated that it was Hillary Clinton’s turn.

    But perhaps the pushback would not be as rough as Challenger X expected. In all likelihood, it would occur mostly in private or anonymously. Biden would be somewhat obliged to project calm and indifference in public. “The more the merrier,” the president and his surrogates would say through tight smiles. Nobody would benefit from any appearance of resentment.

    David A. Graham: The catch-24 of replacing Joe Biden

    Challenger X could earn goodwill by campaigning with class and expressing unrelenting gratitude to Biden. She could simply nod and shrug in response to the various admonitions. Emphasize her own credentials and the grave threat posed by Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, or any other Republican. Say repeatedly that she would do whatever was necessary to help and support the president if primary voters nominated him again.

    For any Challenger X, the main selling point would fall into the general classification of representing “new blood,” a “fresh start,” or some such. These terms would serve as polite stand-ins for the age issue rather than smears about Biden’s mental capacity. Another thematic argument would involve popular American ideals such as “choice” and “freedom.” As in: Democrats deserve a “choice” and should enjoy the “freedom” to vote for someone other than the oldest president in history—the guy well over half of you don’t want to run.

    Challenger X would almost certainly receive tons of press coverage—probably good coverage, too, given that the media are predisposed to favor maverick-y candidates who inject unforeseen conflict into the process. When the voting starts, maybe this upstart would overperform—grabbing 35 percent or so in the early states, say. Maybe they wouldn’t surpass Biden, but could still reap the good coverage, gracefully drop out, and gain an immediate advantage for 2028. Or maybe Biden would take the hint, step away on his own, and let Democrats get on with picking their next class of national leaders. To some degree, the party has been putting this off since Obama was elected.

    Quite obviously, Democrats today have a strong craving for someone other than the sitting president. (Also obvious: That someone is not the current vice president.) Many voters viewed Biden’s candidacy in 2020 as a one-term proposition. He suggested as much. “Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” Biden said nearly three years ago at a campaign event in Michigan, where he appeared with Harris, Booker, and Whitmer. “There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.”

    Some mischief-maker should give Democrats a path to that future starting now. Voters bought the bridge in 2020. But when does it become a bridge too far?

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    Mark Leibovich

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  • Democratic National Committee Votes To Shake Up Primary Calendar, Elevating South Carolina

    Democratic National Committee Votes To Shake Up Primary Calendar, Elevating South Carolina

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    The Democratic National Committee voted Saturday to follow President Joe Biden’s recommendation and drastically alter the party’s early presidential primary schedule, elevating South Carolina, sidelining Iowa and angering New Hampshire.

    The new calendar would also give early voting status to Michigan and Georgia for the first time, significantly increasing the racial and geographic diversity of the early voting states. With Biden unlikely to face a significant primary challenge in 2024 ― and with the DNC likely to revisit the changes before the next primary in 2028 ― it’s unclear how much effect they will have.

    Under the new calendar, Democratic primary voting would begin one year from this week. South Carolina would vote first on Feb. 3, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada on Feb. 6, Georgia on Feb. 13 and Michigan on Feb. 27.

    But it’s the elevation of South Carolina to first place that has proved the most controversial, setting up a direct clash with New Hampshire. The Granite State’s first-in-the-nation primary status is written into its state law, giving its secretary of state wide leeway to protect its prized status.

    “You can try to come and take it, but that is never going to happen,” Gov. Chris Sununu (R) said in his inauguration speech last month. “It’s just not in our DNA to take orders from Washington. We will not be blackmailed. We will not be threatened, and we will not give up.”

    New Hampshire Democrats have also argued Biden is making a misstep, and it’s unclear how national Democrats plan to reconcile the new calendar and New Hampshire state law.

    Beyond New Hampshire, national progressives have also questioned South Carolina’s elevation, noting its deeply conservative electorate and history of fierce anti-union sentiment.

    “South Carolina is already first in the nation at something that it shouldn’t be proud of; it is the lowest-density union state in America,” Faiz Shakir, the 2020 presidential campaign manager for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wrote in a New York Times opinion piece in December. “It should thus never be in contention to be first on our calendar.”

    Supporters of the changes argue they would empower South Carolina’s Black voters, rewarding the most loyal members of the Democratic base.

    “Black voters in particular have been the backbone of the Democratic Party but have been pushed to the back of the early primary process,” Biden wrote in a letter to DNC members in December. “We rely on these voters in elections but have not recognized their importance in our nominating calendar. It is time to stop taking these voters for granted, and time to give them a louder and earlier voice in the process.”

    Iowa, whose first-in-the-nation caucuses have long been derided as undemocratic and where voting went haywire in 2020, will no longer have a spot in the early voting calendar.

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