MANCHESTER, N.H. – U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips’ quixotic presidential campaign could catch fire or come crashing to the ground here on Tuesday, when voters in the Granite State head to the polls to pick their Democratic nominee.
The third-term Minnesota congressman who’s challenging President Joe Biden is hoping to shock the country with a victory or strong showing in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary election. Such a finish could add fuel to Phillips’ argument that Biden is too politically weak to defeat Donald Trump again and force a reckoning for Democrats who’ve been backing the president.
“I think soon it’s going to be, Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Dean Phillips are the only three serious competitors in this thing. And America is going to have a real choice to make,” Phillips told reporters Tuesday morning at a polling place in Londonderry, just southeast of Manchester, where he greeted every voter he could with a handshake and a smile.
In New Hampshire, where Biden isn’t on the ballot but his supporters are expected to write in his name, Phillips might have his best chance to change the narrative. Phillips, author Marianne Williamson and more than a dozen other lesser-known candidates are on the state’s Democratic primary ballot.
The Minnesotan is hoping to win more than 20% support in Tuesday’s primary, a feat he said could be the “springboard” for his long-shot campaign.
“Victory is relative. We’re just starting,” Phillips said Tuesday. “This is my first 10 weeks of a presidential campaign in which nobody knew my name that long ago. We’re going to keep going.”
Biden has chosen not to appear on New Hampshire’s ballot because the state defied the Democratic National Committee by holding its primary election before South Carolina’s. The DNC reshuffled its order of state presidential primaries this year, placing South Carolina ahead of the historically first New Hampshire.
The winner of New Hampshire’s Democratic presidential primary will gain only momentum because the DNC has deemed the contest unsanctioned and declared it won’t award any delegates.
Raymond Buckley, chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, said the strange circumstances of Tuesday’s election make it unlike any in recent history.
“We have nothing to compare it to. There’s no basis to even begin to have a sense of how it’s all going to happen,” Buckley said. “Literally, anything can happen.”
New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan predicted late last week that more people will turn out for the state’s Republican primary. He estimated a voter turnout of 322,000 for the Republican contest and 88,000 for the Democratic primary.
The last time a Democratic president sought re-election in New Hampshire — Barack Obama in 2012 — about 62,000 voters cast ballots in the Democratic primary. Four years ago, about 300,000 people voted in the open Democratic primary.
At a polling place in Manchester early Tuesday morning, 37-year-old Erin Martin proudly cast a write-in vote for Biden, whom she praised a strong leader who’s made good progress. As a mother of two girls, Martin said she’s worried about the prospect of a second Trump presidency and feels safer with Biden in the White House.
“I feel terrified … that as a country we’ll lose our democracy, that women’s rights will be completely taken away, that my daughters, it will trickle down to them eventually,” Martin said. “It almost kind of chokes me up to think about it.”
Phillips and his supporters briefly stood outside the Manchester polling location, thanking voters for participating in Tuesday’s election regardless of who they supported. Not everyone was receptive.
When Phillips asked an elderly woman if he could say hello, she snapped back: “You may not. Biden all the way!”
Janet Poisson, on the other hand, was happy to support Phillips. The 48-year-old from Manchester said she thinks Americans “definitely need a change.”
“Having another option to vote Democrat is wonderful, and our current president isn’t even on our ballot,” Poisson said, expressing frustration about Biden’s absence from the primary.
In Derry, a town about 15 miles southeast of Manchester, 36-year-old Jon Turcotte posed for a picture with Phillips after casting a vote for him. He said he likes that Phillips has the guts to speak up to the DNC.
“I like his policies,” Turcotte said. “Based on the things he’s been saying, he seems like a good candidate. I don’t know how good his chances are.”
Waving their candidates’ signs outside the Derry polling place, some Biden and Trump supporters told Phillips they respected him after he came over to shake hands and give high-fives.
But some voters, such as Bill and Janice Burke, said they didn’t know enough about Phillips and that his presidential campaign started too late. They wrote in Biden’s name on Tuesday, saying they think the president is best positioned to beat Trump.
“I don’t think Dean has enough steam,” Bill Burke said.
Staff writer Josie Albertson-Grove contributed to this report.