The New Hampshire Republican primary of 1980 was one for the history books. Two presidents (Reagan and Bush) were on the ballot, along with the dynamic former Texas Governor John Connally, Rep. Phil Crane (who ended up writing the 1982 tax cut bill), and Senate Minority Leader (soon to become Majority Leader) Howard Baker.
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It may have been the most talented, weighty group of Republican presidential candidates in history. Before cable news, there was fierce competition among the three networks for viewers, meaning the networks pulled out all the stops, sending their stars to traipse around the snows of the Granite State.
George Bush had just won the Iowa caucus and claimed he had “The Big Mo.” As it turned out, that’s all he had. Reagan walloped him and the rest of the field and never looked back.
But the New Hampshire primary generated excitement nationwide back then. And most of the “First in the Nation” primaries since then have, at the very least, been suspenseful as far as who would outperform expectations and who wouldn’t.
The 2024 version of the New Hampshire primary may be the dullest contest in the storied history of the primary in the state.
“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before in my 32 years of New Hampshire presidential primary experience,” New Hampshire GOP strategist Mike Dennehy, told Politico.
“You don’t see the frenzy, the frenetic activity,” said Dave Carney, a New Hampshire Republican strategist. “You don’t see the movements that are usually going on where you have folks crisscrossing the state, trying to get every last vote.”
Instead, Carney said, it’s mostly “a lot of TV ads and a lot of mail.”
What makes this New Hampshire primary so dull is that there are two incumbents running, And one of them won’t even enter the state to campaign.
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Donald Trump is going to win the New Hampshire primary. The only question is by how much. But Joe Biden isn’t even on the ballot. New Hampshire Democrats, ever proud of being the “First in the Nation” primary, resented the fact that Joe Biden had a political debt to pay to South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, whose campaigning on Biden’s behalf in 2020 pulled his campaign from the ashes and gave him a critical victory in the Tar Heel State.
Biden engineered a coup with the Democratic National Committee that gave South Carolina the “First in the Nation” spot. Even after being warned by the DNC that any delegates chosen by New Hampshire wouldn’t be seated at the convention, New Hampshire Democrats said to hell with it and are going ahead with their primary.
“It’s probably the first time since 1980 that I’ve known an election to happen without there being a Channel 9 debate,” Carney said, referring to the local ABC affiliate that traditionally co-hosts the debate.
Bob Meyer, a Dover Republican who attended Haley’s rally on Wednesday night at the American Legion in Rochester, recalled primaries past when he could go to a friend’s house and meet candidates close up. His youngest daughter became interested in the political process the year he took her to the home of Fergus Cullen, the former state GOP chair who lives nearby, to meet Jeb Bush. Meyer also has fond memories of his conversation with John Kasich at Cullen’s house.
Nothing like that happened this year.
“Part of running for president is can you handle it? Can you handle the heat of being president?” Meyer said of candidates’ willingness to take candid audience questions. “And can you handle this kind of crowd?”
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Does it matter that Biden isn’t in New Hampshire and that Trump doesn’t have to spend much time there? In the grand scheme of things, New Hampshire has never mattered very much. It’s an afterthought in November. And perhaps in the age of saturation media coverage, the kind of retail politicking New Hampshire is famous for doesn’t seem very important.
But as long as New Hampshire is setting itself up as the “First in the Nation” primary, politicians will make the pilgrimage to the snowy hills and tiny hamlets that have made New Hampshire a critical stop on the way to the presidency.