By Trouble may be brewing for Biden’s reelection chances in New Hampshire. A recent poll released by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center shows that the sitting president would not win the first primary in the nation if the election were held today. On top of that, most Democrats in the Granite State don’t even want him to run again.
Rather than the incumbent, New Hampshire liberals are clamoring for Pete Buttigeig, Biden’s Secretary of Transportation. The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has spent the last few years failing upward, recently revealing his abilities as the nation’s air transportation was crippled by an alleged hack.
The poll comes as the president is expected to announce that he will run again for the White House in the upcoming months.
The Independent evaluated the polling results. “Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg — and importantly, not his boss Joe Biden — is the top choice of Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire for the upcoming presidential election cycle.
Those were the results of a new Granite State poll released on Thursday, which delivered another bad headline for the president: a full two-thirds of Democratic primary voters in the state say he should either “probably” or “definitely” not run for re-election.
In a poll listing a score of the nation’s most prominent Democratic figures, Mr Buttigieg topped the ranks with 16 per cent of voters naming him as their first choice for the 2024 primary. In second place was Mr Biden at 15 per cent, with Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders following behind at 10 and 8 per cent, respectively.
The result is somewhat of a likely outcome for Mr Buttigieg, who has taken on a role with newfound national prominence since joining the Biden administration. As secretary of Transportation, he has been a visible and vocal defender of the adminsitration’s early successful push for infrastructure reform, a topic over which he frequently sparred with Fox News hosts as one of the few Democrats willing to go on the network to face potentially hostile questions.”
CBS said the polling reveals why Biden has suddenly become so interested in moving which state gets to go first on the Democratic primary calendar.
“Biden fled New Hampshire on primary day two years ago as it became clear he would finish poorly. And almost three years later, it seems little has changed. A new Granite State Poll from the University of New Hampshire Survey Center found 82% of progressives and 57% of liberals, groups that usually dominate the Democratic primary there, probably or definitely do not want Biden to run again next year.
‘This is stronger than the animosity that there was towards Lyndon Johnson back in 1968,’ a time of intense opposition to the war in Vietnam, notes, survey director Andrew Smith. His poll found that if the primary were held today, Biden’s transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, would beat him, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders breathing down his neck.
No wonder Biden is pushing for a change in the presidential primary calendar that would strip New Hampshire of its first-in-the-nation status and replace it with less left-leaning electorates in South Carolina and Nevada. Doesn’t this almost validate Biden’s instincts that New Hampshire shouldn’t go first, we asked Smith?
‘I think it certainly is not gonna be anything that really surprises him,’ he says.’
“In September 2022, Buttigieg answered “who knows” when asked during a speaking event at Vox Media’s Code Conference in Beverly Hills if he is considering running for the White House again,” Newsweek noted.
“You run for an office because you notice something about the office, and something about yourself, and something about the moment that adds up,” Buttigieg said.
“And that process has been one I have used to decide to run for office several times, and it’s a process I’ve used to decide to not run for office several times. So who knows what the future is going to call me.”
On the Republican side, the poll was not good for Donald Trump, either. The University of New Hampshire wrote, “Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has opened a lead over former President Donald Trump among likely voters in the New Hampshire 2024 Republican presidential primary. Less than half of likely GOP primary voters think Trump should be running.”
As Trump’s campaign for 2024 has struggled, more and more Republican leaders seem willing to step out of his shadow. In New Hampshire, at least, Republicans and Democrats agree that they want new blood in the White House.
Reuters reported, “When Donald Trump trounced his Republican rivals in New Hampshire’s 2016 primary, the stunning win announced to other states the reality TV showman was a serious contender. Trump went on to capture the Republican nomination and then the White House.
But as the former president kicks off his bid to recapture the White House in 2024 with a speech in New Hampshire on Saturday – his first event in an early primary state – he will find the political landscape more treacherous than he did six years ago, according to party activists, members and strategists in the state.
In interviews with 10 New Hampshire Republican Party officials and members, some of whom worked on Trump’s 2016 primary campaign and all of whom have been staunch Trump supporters in the past, Reuters found only three who were sticking with him this time around – including the state chair, an influential Republican figure who is so enthusiastic about Trump he is stepping down on Saturday to help his campaign.
The public souring on the former president is a troubling development for Trump. A defeat could complicate his chances of winning the party nomination for president, analysts say, because New Hampshire often gives a candidate momentum as they head to other primary states.”
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