Yes, Joe Biden also took part in the primaries in New Hampshire. He was even the winner among the Democrats there, much more clearly than Donald Trump was among the Republicans. Unlike Trump, however, he was not in the American northeast on election day. It wasn’t even on the ballot, so it wasn’t right. “Write-in,” it said instead of his name on many of these papers, i.e. “insert.” If you liked, you could enter Joe Biden there, or just Biden.
More than half of Democratic voters did exactly that. A majority did not vote for the other candidates, but instead used the “write-in” option, mostly using Biden’s name. The reason why this unusual variant of approval came about is due to his party’s decidedly idiosyncratic election calendar.
Biden will not officially enter South Carolina until the primaries in early February
This time, the Democrats didn’t just skip the caucus in Iowa, the traditional start to the election year. Their only really significant candidate basically skipped the continuation in New Hampshire.
The decision came in a dispute between the party headquarters, i.e. the Democratic National Committee, and the Democrats in New Hampshire. This time there will be no delegates from here when representatives from other states nominate the Democratic Party’s candidate for the presidential election on November 5th at the party convention in Chicago in August.
Biden will not officially enter South Carolina until the primaries in early February, in memory of his triumph there four years ago. His path to the White House really began in the South, with his first victory against his Democratic rivals such as Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg. He had previously lost to all three in Iowa in 2020, and Amy Klobuchar was also ahead of him in New Hampshire. Biden ended up with 8.4 percent.
But his supporters now organized this apparently quite successful “write-in” campaign in New Hampshire. They put up a “WriteInBiden” homepage and greeted the electorate with signs that read “Write-in Joe Biden.” Numerous interested parties accepted the offer. This seemed more attractive and more effective to them than the rest of the offer.
In addition to the “write-in” box, there were 21 pre-printed names of competitors
21 alternatives were pre-printed on the forms, led by Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson. Representative Phillips sits in the House of Representatives for Minnesota. Author Williamson was a former pastor at Unity Church and wrote spiritual bestsellers such as “A Return to Love,” which sold millions of copies. She ran in 2020 before supporting Sanders.
Phillips now got just under 20 percent, Williamson about five percent. They are the only Democrats who are at least known to insiders and who are still running against Biden without the slightest chance. Otherwise, the party had such funny candidates as Vermin Supreme, Paperboy Prince, President Boddie and Star Locke to offer during its unofficial run in New Hampshire.
The bon vivant Vermin Supreme, for example, is in his early sixties and has a long, gray beard. He wears a rubber boot turned upside down as a hat and often carries a large toothbrush with him. If he wins the election, he would like to introduce a tooth-brushing law and reward every American with a free pony.
His entry into the Oval Office is considered unlikely; the joker found a few hundred admirers in New Hampshire. For Joe Biden there are tens of thousands of votes, even though the candidate Biden didn’t really exist. So far, he has no serious opponents among the Democrats, at least not in his bid for a second term. As things currently stand, this will not change in the coming months.
According to surveys, more than half of Americans are dissatisfied with Biden
Some party friends also have doubts as to whether he is still the right man at 81 and then shortly after the election in 82. They wonder how he will survive the mudslinging with Trump and, in the best case scenario, four more years in the White House.
According to surveys, the majority of his compatriots are dissatisfied with him and his record, and even Trump, who is also unpopular overall, is doing a little better. In the polls that require a direct duel, sometimes the former and sometimes the current president leads.
As a contrast to the primary election in New Hampshire – where Trump defeated his last opponent Nikki Haley – Biden appeared in Virginia. “The person most responsible for taking freedom away from America is Donald Trump,” Biden said there. It was primarily about the federal right to abortion, which was overturned by the US Supreme Court in 2022. Trump had ensured the conservative turnaround through the judges he appointed to the Supreme Court during his term in office, but the anger of even moderate Republican supporters over the revised law suits the Democrats.
Biden was accompanied, among others, by his often invisible deputy Kamala Harris, with whom he now appears more often. She should remain his deputy if he wins. The audience was in different moods. Some called for a ceasefire in the Middle East and called him “Genocide Joe” – the US support for Israel goes too far, especially for left-wing or Arab-born Democrats, given the conditions in Gaza. Others shouted “Four more years!” and said they would like Biden to be in the post until January 2029.
Biden is moving two of his most important advisors from Washington to his campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, and his team is to become more hands-on. His tacticians also trust that the recovery of the US economy and his commitment to freedom of choice in abortion will increase his popularity ratings.
Because now the likely very ugly competition begins with his challenger from Mar-a-Lago, Florida. Donald Trump, says Biden strategist Julie Chávez Rodriguez, is heading straight for an election “in which he will face the only person who has ever beaten him at the ballot box: Joe Biden.”