Monthly Archives: January 2024

President Biden scores decisive New Hampshire Democratic primary write-in victory

President Joe Biden, on a primary roll

With some votes still left to be counted, President Joe Biden won the New Hampshire 2024 Democratic presidential primary this past Tuesday without even having his name on the ballot. Biden captured 64 percent of the vote, with a margin of victory of approximately 45 percent over the second-place finisher. What is really remarkable is that all of President Biden’s votes were write-ins. That’s because, as we indicated a few weeks ago, at the urging of President Biden and his campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNCvoted to request New Hampshire and Iowa to move their primary and caucus, respectively, to a later date, after that of South Carolina (which holds its Democratic primary on February 3), in order to “increase diversity” early in the process. However, while Iowa agreed to move its Democratic caucus to March 5, New Hampshire refused to do so. As a result, President Biden did not place his name on the ballot for the New Hampshire primary, thus only write-in votes would count for Biden.

Normally, there would have been approximately 33 Democratic delegates at stake in New Hampshire. However, due to the dispute with the DNC, no Democratic delegates will be allocated to any candidate in this year’s Granite State primary. As for the remaining states, it will take roughly 1,965-1,970 delegates (different sources give slightly different numbers) to win the Democratic presidential nomination this year.

Two ways to spin Trump’s Iowa caucus win

The media’s dream for the Republican primaries

Last Monday night, as expected Donald Trump won the 2024 Iowa Republican presidential caucus. Trump’s win, with 51 percent of the vote, ahead of Ron DeSantis (21.2 percent) and Nimarata Nikki Haley (19.1 percent), was the largest margin of victory in Iowa Republican presidential caucus history. Indeed, the Associated Press called the contest for Trump just 30 minutes after the polls had closed, and other news outlets quickly followed suit.

At the same time, however, some Democrats, such as Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, said that the Iowa results showed “the weakness of Donald Trump.” According to Pritzker, “Almost half of the base of the Republican Party showing up for this caucus tonight voted against Donald Trump.” Pritzker added that the Iowa results were therefore a good sign for President Joe Biden, who is running for re-election.

The 2024 presidential primaries are coming up fast, with controversy

Vermin Supreme, 2024 New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary candidate

It’s hard to believe, but the first 2024 presidential primary contest is just 11 days away. Specifically, on January 15, Iowa will hold its Republican presidential caucus. In advance of the Iowa GOP caucus, CNN is holding another Republican presidential debate just five days beforehand, on January 10. However, only three candidates qualified for the CNN debate: Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Nimarata Nikki Haley. Since Trump previously announced that he was skipping these debates, it will be just DeSantis and Haley, who are dead even in the Republican polls (though both are way behind Trump), flinging mud at each other. Both DeSantis and Haley are spending millions of dollars (either directly or via supportive PACs) to attack the other.

Eight days after the Iowa caucus, on January 23, comes the New Hampshire primaries, both on the Democratic and Republican side. Here’s where the controversy begins, and it’s with the Democrats. At the urging of President Joe Biden and his campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) voted in favor of asking New Hampshire and Iowa to move their primary and caucus, respectively, to a later date, after that of South Carolina (which holds its 2024 Democratic primary on February 3), in order to “increase diversity” at the front end of the primary process. However, while Iowa agreed to move its Democratic caucus back to March 5, New Hampshire closely holds onto its first-in-the-nation primary status, which is written into state law, and both New Hampshire Democrats and Republicans (including Republican Governor Chris Sununu and Republican Secretary of State David Scanlan) opposed any such change.