No. of Recommendations: 9
Despite not being on the ballot in the New Hampshire primary, not visiting the state to campaign, and not running any campaign ads there, president Biden has won more votes than president Obama did in his reelection campaign in 2012 when Obama was the only democrat on the ballot. And Obama was actually on the ballot.
In 2012, Obama won 49,080 votes. In 2024, president Biden has won 61,152 write-in votes with 13,000 write-in votes yet to be counted (and president Biden will get most of those).
In December, the Dean Phillips campaign said his target was 42% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, about the same percentage that Eugene McCarthy received in 1968 to force LBJ out of the race. Phillips is currently at 19%.
But no one wants Biden, amirite?
And I'm beginning to wonder what Trump's winning percentage would have been if DeSantis had stayed in the race. He endorsed Trump and clearly most of his supporters would have switched their votes to Trump. With DeSantis still in the race, Trump's 12% margin of victory (really pretty bad when you think about it) might have been single digits.
So what's the final takeaway from New Hampshire? Well, Trump's overall support is declining but the supporters who remain are more fervent than ever.
For Biden, it seems his support is stronger than polls indicate.
But sure, there's still a long, long way to go.
