No FITN? No Free Ride, House GOP Prepares To Tell DNC

By Michael Graham, NH Journal

While Granite State Democrats remain silent in the face of the DNC’s vote to strip New Hampshire of its First-in-the-Nation presidential primary, Republican lawmakers are looking for ways to fight back.

Deputy House Majority Leader Joe Sweeney (R-Salem) says he has drafted legislation that he plans to submit to the Office of Legislative Services this fall. The proposal is designed to create headaches for the Democratic National Committee in response to its attack on the state’s century-old FITN tradition.

“Our primary is not a courtesy Washington extends to us,” Sweeney said. “It is New Hampshire law, run by New Hampshire officials, paid for by New Hampshire taxpayers. A party that spends four years trying to bury it should not spend one day in November pretending it did not.”

Sweeney’s legislation would require each political party’s national chair to file a certification stating whether the party recognizes New Hampshire’s primary. The certification would be due in the fall before a presidential election. The secretary of state would review it, and the party would have months to change course before any penalties took effect.

If a party declined to do so, it would be barred from nominating the state’s presidential electors, would not have a party label on the general election ballot and would no longer have its candidates appear automatically on the ballot.

Instead, the party’s candidates — in this case, Democrats — would have to gather signatures to appear on the ballot, as third-party candidates currently do.

“What it does not do is move, cancel, or condition the primary,” Sweeney said. “New Hampshire votes first on our date regardless. It does not stop any voter from voting for any candidate or writing in a name.”

There are questions about the legality of Sweeney’s proposal. Asked whether he thought the approach would pass legal muster, former Republican state Attorney General Tom Rath gave a one-word answer: “No.”

But others say Sweeney’s approach could work, in part because it would not deny Democratic candidates ballot access. It simply would not give them the automatic access granted to a major party.

“They would just have to work for it, using the alternate access route we use for third parties,” said Rep. Ross Berry (R-Weare), chair of the House Election Law Committee. “They would just have to go out and get signatures like third-party candidates do.”

And even if it does not work, Republicans such as Berry and Sweeney say, at least their party is fighting back.

“New Hampshire Democrats have reduced themselves to filming performative outrage videos on their iPhones after the DNC has already spoken. Republicans are now fighting the battle Democrats either couldn’t or wouldn’t fight themselves by protecting our First-in-the-Nation primary and strengthening the law that defends it,” Berry said.

The contrast between the two parties’ reactions to the DNC vote has been stark.

Republicans have uniformly stated that New Hampshire will go first, as it has for more than 100 years and as state law requires.

“The DNC continues to prove it has no respect for New Hampshire voters or our First-in-the-Nation primary,” said NHGOP Chairman Scott Maltzie. “The good news for Granite Staters is that New Hampshire law, not the DNC, determines when our presidential primary is held.”

Democrats such as gubernatorial candidate Cinde Warmington, on the other hand, have expressed disappointment in the DNC vote but pointedly declined to say they support holding an unsanctioned primary ahead of the DNC-approved calendar.

And a few Democrats have taken tentative steps toward caving to the DNC’s demands.

Steve Marchand, a former Democratic candidate for governor who now works as a political adviser for the House Democratic Campaign Committee, published a lengthy Substack post explaining how New Hampshire could give the DNC what it wants.

“There are ways to thread the needle of compliance with state law and the DNC’s proposed calendar that could be very exciting for New Hampshire and (more importantly) the candidates,” Marchand wrote.

His proposal would involve candidates refusing to appear on the FITN ballot but perhaps mounting write-in campaigns for the “beauty contest.” The state Democratic Party would then raise and spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to hold another primary in which the candidates would actually participate.

“I think something like this could actually be very exciting — and I say this as somebody who has been as vigorous a defender of New Hampshire’s unique position to hold the FITN as anybody,” Marchand wrote.

Nathan Shrader, a political science professor at New England College, is an outspoken voice in the state’s progressive community. He posted on social media that the DNC’s new calendar “is reflective of the cultural, economic, geographic, political, racial, & regional diversity of both the party & electorate. This calendar puts forward a pragmatic, balanced cross section of voters.”

The one Democrat who has explicitly said the FITN show must go on is U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas. While he participated in the 2024 strategy of helping President Joe Biden skip New Hampshire through a write-in campaign, Pappas now calls the DNC vote “bull—-.”

“I fully support our First in the Nation primary. I stand with our state’s election officials who are going to enforce the law. And today’s vote doesn’t change a damn thing.”

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.