2024 New Hampshire First-In-The-Nation Presidential Primary Date Set

CONCORD, NH — Secretary of State David Scanlan has (finally) set the date: The 2024 New Hampshire First-In-The-Nation Presidential Primary will be held on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024.

Scanlan announced the date on Wednesday after many months of contemplation as well as a tussle with the Democratic National Committee and President Joe Biden over whether New Hampshire would remain first on the primary calendar. Scanlan said, for more than a century, New Hampshire has held its primary and would continue to.

“New Hampshire became the lead-off primary in 1920 by default and it has been first ever since,” he said. “We did not take the first-in-the-nation status from anyone and we will vigorously defend it.”

Scanlan said some national Democrats and political pundits have attacked the state, claiming it was “too white, and, by extension, too privileged,” while raising “alleged concerns over lack of racial diversity.” One pundit Scanlan saw on television recently, asked out loud if anyone in New Hampshire knew what it was like to live on a dirt road.

“The answer, of course, is yes, we do,” Scanlan said. “You cannot truly appreciate a dirt road until you have experienced one during a New Hampshire mud season. Using racial diversity as a cudgel in an attempt to rearrange the presidential nominating calendar is an ugly precedent. At what point does a state become too old or too wealthy or too educated or too religious to hold an early primary? The truth is, there is no individual state that truly reflects the make-up of America, and no state is more ‘American’ than any other state.”

A state law, passed in 1975, authored by former state Sen. Jim Splaine, D-Portsmouth, requires the secretary of state to set the New Hampshire primary seven days before any other “similar event.” Scanlan noted he attended the funeral of Sybil Dupuis, the great-granddaughter of Stephen Bullock, last week. He was a life-long farmer and the Democratic state representative from Richmond who authored New Hampshire’s presidential primary law 110 years ago.

Scanlan said any “lesser-known candidate” in the country can spend $1,000 on the filing fee and run for president. He called even the fringiest candidates “serious … who believe they have something to offer the country and New Hampshire voters will give them a shot.”

For 2024, there are 21 Democrats and 24 Republicans on the ballot.

After the announcement, Republicans made hay of the fact a sitting Democrat president refused to be on the ballot in 2024.

“Despite the Democratic National Committee’s attempts at stripping New Hampshire of its First-in-the-Nation status, we will be voting first on 01/23/24 as outlined in state law,” House Speaker Sherm Packard, a Republican from Londonderry, said. “I'd like to commend Secretary Scanlan for defending our 100-year-old tradition and protecting the democratic process of electing presidential candidates. New Hampshire has proven to be the truest representation of democracy — where the voters decide, not national political parties. We’ve reminded the nation that we are the ‘Live Free or Die’ state. We will not be pushed around.”

New Hampshire GOP Chairman Chris Ager called Biden’s “notable absence” a “slap in the face” of all Granite Staters.

“The New Hampshire primary, a time-honored tradition in American politics, has served as a crucial proving ground for all who wish a term in the nation’s top job,” he said. “This year, Joe Biden refused to campaign with the people of New Hampshire. Why? He cannot answer for the hardships his policies have caused on Granite Staters.”

Ager called Biden “the worst President in modern times” adding he had “projected weakness on the global stage and sent our families into an unprecedented downward economic spiral.” The president, he said, “abandoned New Hampshire, and all Granite Staters should be rightfully offended.”

Democrats, however, are waging an active write-in campaign to help Biden win the primary he refused to participate in.

Mo Baxley, a former political director for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire, said the Write-In Biden effort had more than 1,000 voters from 162 cities and towns committed to writing in the president’s name on their ballots.

“President Joe Biden has made real progress for everyday Americans, in the face of a broken congress and a dangerous world — and we’re not about to 2024 start off with the MAGA circus as the only show in town on Primary Day,” Baxley said.

Former House Speaker Terie Norelli, a Portsmouth Democrat, said, while the effort was a “shoestring, grassroots operation,” having voters commit to writing in the president from more than half the state’s towns showed “real energy and enthusiasm for starting 2024 by making a stand on Primary Day for the leader who has already beaten Trump and the MAGA movement once before, and will do it again next year.”

Olivia Zink, the executive director of Open Democracy, said the date gave cities and towns enough time to find and train volunteers since there will probably be a long night of hand-counting write-in ballots.

“Election workers put in hours of hard work making sure NH continues to have best in the nation free and fair elections,” she said. “We are excited to see more volunteers join the process as democracy heroes this year in volunteering to count write-in ballots, and encourage towns/cities to plan ahead to attract and train enough volunteers.”

On The Ballot

The following candidates are on the ballot.

Democrats

President R. Boddie of Locust Grove, Georgia

Terrisa Bukovinac of Washington, D.C.

Eban Cambridge of Hayward, California

Gabriel Cornejo of Las Vegas, Nevada

Mark Stewart Greenstein of West Hartford, Connecticut

Tom Koos of Woodside, California

Paul LaCava of Worcester, Massachusetts

Star Loke of Port Aransas, Texas

Frankie Lozada of Valley Stream, New York

Stephen Lyons of Damascus, Maryland

Raymond Moroz of Colonie, NY

Derek Nadeau of Portsmouth

Jason Palmar of Baltimore, Maryland

Mando Perez-Serrato of Orange, CA

U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips of Wayzata, Minnesota

Donald Picard of Cambridge, MA

Paperboy Love Prince of Brooklyn, NY

Richard Rist of Baltimore, MA

Vermin Supreme of Rockport, MA

John Vail of Easton

Marianne Williamson of Washington, D.C.

Republicans

Scott Ayers of Carpentersville, Illinois

Ryan Binkley of Dallas, TX

Gov. Doug Burgum of Bismarck, North Dakota

Robert Carney Jr. of Minneapolis, MN

John Castro of Mansfield, TX

Gov. Chris Christie of Medham, New Jersey

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Tallahasse, Florida

Gov. Nikki Haley of Kiawah Island, South Carolina

Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Rogers, Arkansas

Peter Jedick of Rocky River, Ohio

Perry Johnson of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

Donald Kjornes of Watertown, South Dakota

Mary Maxwell of Concord

Glenn McPeters of Essex Junction, Vermont

Scott Merrell of Norwalk, CT

Darius Mitchell of Lowell, MA

Vice President Mike Pence of Zionsville, Indiana *

Vivek Ramaswamy of Columbus, OH

Tim Scott of Hanahan, SC *

Hirsh Singh of Linwood, NJ

Samuel Sloan of Oakland, CA

David Stuckenberg of Tampa, FL

Rachel Swift of Hagerstown, MD

President Donald Trump of Palm Beach, FL

* Denotes the candidate is on the ballot but has dropped out of the race.

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