Democrats flock to New Hampshire in 2024 shadow primary

Potential Democratic presidential hopefuls are traveling to New Hampshire with striking frequency, campaigning for midterm candidates while introducing themselves to voters in the first-in-the-nation primary state.

It’s a sign that just weeks before Election Day, the 2024 campaign cycle is already underway.

While most Democrats are there as surrogates, the roster includes some of the same names who ran for president in 2020, jumpstarting the conversation about what the next few years could look like if President Biden doesn’t seek a second White House term.

“There are three categories of visitors to New Hampshire right now on the Democratic side,” said Jim Demers, veteran Democratic operative in the state who worked on former President Obama’s and Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-N.J.) national campaigns. 

U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) speaks at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing examining issues facing prisons and jails during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 2, 2020.

“There are those who are just the good friends who are coming here because they’ve got relationships with our candidates and relationships with people,” he said. “There’s another group that maybe are of the generation where they feel like, ‘Even if I don’t do something in 2024, it’s a great investment in the future in 2028.’ … And there’s a group that are like, ‘I’m not going to run against Joe Biden,’ but if for some reason Joe Biden actually says, ‘I’ve decided not to run,’ they don’t want to be completely caught flatfooted.”

“I think all three approaches are good strategies for New Hampshire,” Demers said. “It’s a chance for friends and potential future candidates to make relationships here, which are key because our campaigns are so personal.”

For now, the state’s battleground Senate and House races are compelling reasons to make the trip. 

Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) is competing against Don Bolduc, a retired general, in one of the map’s most consequential contests for control of the upper chamber.

Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., during a campaign stop, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022, in Rochester, N.H. Sen. Hassan is facing Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Don Bolduc in the November election.

Hassan is favored in the race. She’s led Bolduc consistently in polls, and state and national Democrats were relieved when Bolduc won the Republican nomination against a more moderate candidate. The closer the GOP nominee is to former President Trump and his claims of election fraud — which Bolduc first embraced before changing his mind — the easier it will be for Democrats to win that race, many in the party believe.

But they aren’t taking it for granted. Some of Hassan’s closest allies have traveled from Washington to help her out.

Last week, former Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) — a self-proclaimed Granite State newbie — expressed excitement about touching down in the fall.

“First ever visit to New Hampshire and I made sure to take a short break from campaigning for my friend [Hassan] to enjoy some amazing New England Clam Chowder and a lobster roll!” Jones tweeted, along with a photo displaying his big grin.

The trip caught the attention of some national campaign strategists, who see his move as both helpful to the party and potentially handy for his own prospects. 

“I do like Doug Jones going up there,” said Michael Ceraso, a Democratic strategist who lived in various parts of the state and worked on both Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaigns in the state. “But he isn’t in an official position. … So he can do whatever the f— he wants.”

Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., speaks during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee hearing to examine social media’s impact on homeland security, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington.

A pair of senators from two of Democrats’ top swing states, Jon Ossoff of Georgia and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, have also stumped there to help keep the Senate majority intact. While Ossoff and Baldwin are just two of the party’s Senate members to have visited — Booker and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) have also paid visits — their presence has not gone unnoticed. Some believe it gives them a way to conveniently meet voters, even as Biden has pledged to run again. The groundwork can be laid in advance, the thinking goes, irrespective of whether they actually mount White House bids. 

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., center, speaks as Sen. Ron Wyden, right, and Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, left, listen during a news conference, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington.

The same goes for Buttigieg, who came in second place in the New Hampshire primary during his first stab at the presidency two years ago and is already seen as a local favorite among some Democrats.

“It’s hard to divide national leaders versus potential candidates,” said Ray Buckley, the longtime chairman of New Hampshire’s Democratic Party. “Who knows the line.”

So far, two of the highest-profile former presidential contenders with deep ties to New Hampshire’s neighboring states, Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), have avoided it. Sanders won the early primary twice, in 2016 and 2020, while Warren came in several places lower in 2020 but spent a considerable amount of time hosting town halls and courting voters on the ground. Democrats believe both might be considering future runs. 

Sanders is notably heading to several other battlegrounds in the last three weeks before the midterms, including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Nevada, but for now has left New Hampshire off his list. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during the Politics & Eggs at Saint Anselm College New Hampshire Institute of Politics, Friday, Feb. 7, 2020, in Manchester, N.H.

“Consultants are telling these folks, ‘Go, it’ll get news coverage and maybe set you up for the next presidential.’ And they listen,” Ceraso said. “And then they deny it’s about wanting to be president.”

On the House side, Democrats are competing in two races that will help shape the control and ideology of the lower chamber. While many in the party expect the House to be lost to the GOP — with Republicans gaining momentum in recent weeks — there’s a belief that mostly moderate Democrats can still win in some key districts and define the narrative of what a good strategy for swing areas can look like.

That’s the hope for Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.), who is competing against Gen Z challenger Karoline Leavitt (R). Pappas is seen as a centrist like Hassan, while Leavitt is a staunch Trump supporter personally aligned with the former president. 

Several of Pappas’s congressional colleagues have visited his home state. 

Two leading anti-Trump crusaders in Congress, Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, made his second trip in recent years to promote his book, while Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who also wrote a book based on the Trump era, was there over the summer. Both visited Concord, the state’s capital.

A third congressman, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), has his own book out, but it’s notably different in nature. It looks at the role of tech and its influence on the job market, which he believes should expand well beyond his area of Silicon Valley to the rest of the country. 

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., speaks at a hearing Oct. 28, 2021, on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Khanna, the most progressive of the House members, has been on a quest to promote that economic message, as he sees critical mistakes being made that hurt working families. 

As Democrats and Republicans alike look to things like the price of gas and inflation affecting the possible outcome of the midterms, Khanna is hoping to resonate in places like New Hampshire, where he’s already been several times.

“It’s tricky,” said Cullen Tiernan, a former delegate for Sanders based in Concord. “If they’re pushing a book and thereby building name ID on their own right, I’d say they’re thinking of running. But that still does not mean 2024.”

“Let’s see who the first people are to show up here after Nov. 8,” he said.