Biden’s Absence From NH Primary Ballot ‘A Slap in the Face’: Marianne Williamson

Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson prepares for a television interview after the Democratic Presidential Debate at the Fox Theatre in Detroit, Mich., on July 30, 2019. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

In a campaign trail interview with The Epoch Times, presidential hopeful Marianne Williamson said President Joe Biden’s absence from New Hampshire’s Democratic primary ballot was an insult to the state.

“I just hope that the New Hampshire voter will recognize this as the slap in the face that it is and not reward the president for such outrageously undemocratic behavior,” the Democrat said in Keene, New Hampshire. She spoke after holding a campaign event at a public library in the small city.

Local Democrats in the state are leading a write-in campaign for President Biden complete with a website and supportive appearances from the likes of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and other national figures in the party.

The incumbent president’s glaring absence from his party’s first primary is downstream of a dispute between the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and New Hampshire about the 2024 primary season.

In February 2023, the DNC voted to slate South Carolina’s primary first, preempting both New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary and Iowa’s caucus.

The move came after President Biden wrote a DNC committee in December 2022 regarding the order of primary season contests. The missive stressed racial diversity and, in particular, the role of black voters.

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“We must ensure that voters of color have a voice in choosing our nominee much earlier in the process and throughout the entire early window… Our early states must reflect the overall diversity of our party and our nation,” the president’s letter reads.

New Hampshire is among the whitest (and least black) states in the country.

“Denying the people of this state because we’re too white is a shame,” Bill Gardner, the former secretary of state of New Hampshire, told The Epoch Times.

The Granite State defied the DNC, as it has before in response to similar maneuvering by national Democrats. Its position as the first primary in the nation is codified in state law.

In November 2023, New Hampshire Secretary of State Chris Scanlan made it official: the state’s Democratic primary would take place on Jan. 23, 11 days before South Carolina’s contest.

That followed President Biden’s decision not to file to appear on New Hampshire’s ballot, which his campaign manager announced in late October. The state could also lose delegates at the Democratic National Convention this summer.

Iowa struck a compromise with the DNC, conducting its Democratic caucus through mail-in ballots that were sent out beginning Jan. 12, even before the Republicans’ Jan. 15 caucus. However, the caucus’s votes won’t be tallied until Super Tuesday—March 5—long after South Carolina’s Feb. 3 primary.

Ms. Williamson rejected the argument that South Carolina was a more fitting state for the Democrats’ opening primary season contest than South Carolina because of its demographics.

“I don’t even know anyone in South Carolina who buys that,” she said. “Also, this state [New Hampshire] is very economically diverse. And that’s not nothing.”

Marianne Williamson at a public library in Keene, N.H., on Jan. 18, 2024, just days away from the state's primaries. (Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times)

She thinks the president is concerned about a poor performance with the state’s independent-minded electorate—one that could set the tone for the rest of the primary season.

It wouldn’t be the first time. In 2020, the future president finished fifth in the state’s primary. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from neighboring Vermont, came in first, followed closely by Pete Buttigieg. Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also finished ahead of the former vice president. Yet, President Biden ultimately defeated all of those rivals to claim the Democratic nomination.

The candidate said she took issue with efforts to boot former President Trump from the ballot.

“I think that it will create more martyrdom and almost intensify support among those who support him,” she said.

And she rejected what she described as a “DNC narrative” that her presence in the race will only hurt President Biden and boost his Republican opponent, now likely to be former President Donald J. Trump, in the general election.

“This is a primary. I’m running in a primary. So, I’m not taking any votes away from Joe Biden,” she said.

New Hampshire may be the progressive populist’s best shot at disrupting a race against an incumbent. The latest surveys on FiveThirtyEight, now owned by ABC News, show Ms. Williamson trailing the president and Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.).

But on the morning and early afternoon of Jan 18, yard signs for Ms. Williamson were more common than ones for Mr. Phillips on the road from Winchendon, Massachusetts, near the New Hampshire border, to Keene. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Mr. DeSantis also showed up frequently.

Marianne Williamson's presidential campaign bus in Keene, N.H., on Jan. 18, 2024. (Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times)

Yard signs for the incumbent president were harder to spot. So were signs for Mr. Phillips.

‘People Do Not Want to Vote for Biden’

Ms. Williamson’s vision for America is not a conventionally conservative one, at least within the context of American politics. She wants to create millions of units of social housing and provide child care and college for free, among other proposals.

Yet, after the redefinition of American politics by President Trump, populist outsiders are finding some areas of agreement that might have been unexpected just a few years ago.

“Many MAGA supporters were on that UAW [United Auto Workers] picket line,” Ms. Williamson said, referring to last year’s autoworker protests.

She pointed out that Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Miss.), a strong social conservative, authored legislation to keep money from publicly traded companies out of elections—a challenge to the Supreme Court’s decision in “Citizens United Vs. Federal Election Commission.”

The Hill reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) heavily criticized the measure at a Senate GOP Lunch.

“That left-right axis is artificially created,” Ms. Williamson said.

In her view, a core issue is “public policies that consistently do more to increase the ability of those who already have capital to make more capital versus those who are simply struggling to get by.”

Whether or not that framing can be totally divorced from the left-right dichotomy, it’s clear that Ms. Williamson’s message resonates with some of New Hampshire’s voters.

“I cannot tell you how many people have come to her events, skeptical and leaving with yard signs and bumper stickers,” Jane Sanders, a Williamson campaign volunteer in New Hampshire, told The Epoch Times.

Irene Lambert (left) and Jane Sanders (right) are volunteers for Marianne Williamson's 2024 presidential campaign. They spoke with The Epoch Times in Keene, N.H., on Jan. 18, 2024, shortly after she spoke before a crowd at a public library. (Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times)

She said there’s a lot more local interest in her this time around than in 2020, the first time the self-help author and spiritual leader contended for the Democratic nomination.

“Privately, people are saying, ‘We really like her.’ And I think if she does well next week that people will start coming out of the woodwork,” Ms. Sanders said.

“People do not want to vote for Biden. I know that much. Even if they’re not telling me who they’re voting for, they’re not voting for Biden,” Irene Lambert, another New Hampshire volunteer for the Williamson campaign, told The Epoch Times.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation status. The Epoch Times regrets this error.