Once again, national Democrats are making a primary mistake

Now it seems clear that New Hampshire will be passed over again by Democrats, based on the premise that it is not diverse enough, in favor of South Carolina or Nevada. The former would be a very strange proving ground. Biden got only 43.4% of the South Carolina vote in 2020 as he went on to win nationally. There is just one Democrat in the state’s seven-member House delegation. The state legislature has been Republican since 1998.

Nevada is also a peculiar political ecosystem. It was there that President Donald Trump, as a candidate, unveiled his June 2024 “no tax on tips” proposal, which Kamala Harris parroted at a Nevada rally two months later, and that led to a four-year suspension of taxes on tips in the federal budget reconciliation bill that passed last year.

If Nevada goes first, a successful Democratic candidate will have to appeal to the critical bloc of Culinary Workers Union members, which could shape his or her remaining campaign in ways that may not appeal to the broader nation. It reminds me of the ethanol pledge that “The West Wing” so well depicted presidential candidates Arnold Vinick and Matt Santos struggling with at a Corn Growers Expo in Iowa.

There is no such organized group to pander to in New Hampshire. And yet, for those who might suggest our state lacks the diversity to go first, I would ask what one’s definition of diversity is. Isn’t age a demographic? New Hampshire has the nation’s second-oldest population. Nationally, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, “From 2020 to 2024, the older population grew by 13.0%, significantly outpacing the 1.4% growth of working-age adults (ages 18 to 64), while the number of children declined by 1.7%.”

By 2034, U.S. sales of adult diapers are projected to exceed baby diaper sales. Our aging population is going to place a strain on safety net programs like Medicaid and Medicare, and New Hampshire would be a great place to hone a message to senior voters. After all, according to the trustees of the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund, it will be insolvent by 2033. Kind of a big deal.

There are an estimated 4 million tipped workers in the country. In contrast, in 2024 data showed that 43.3 million U.S. citizens who are 65-and-older voted, easily the biggest age demographic to vote. It might be somewhat important for a Democratic candidate to win over these older voters, given that Trump won them 51-47% over Harris.

Treating New Hampshire as flyover country would also be taking for granted a state where Republicans have a lock on state government and the presidential vote isn’t a given. Had Al Gore won New Hampshire in 2000, Florida would have been immaterial. Although Hillary Clinton lost the electoral college in 2016, she nearly lost New Hampshire too — carrying it by only a 47.6%-47.2% margin over Trump.

Finally, the retail politics required to win the New Hampshire primary, instead of just pouring money into a major media market like Las Vegas, has made for more nimble candidates in both political parties. It would be a shame for national Democrats to devalue that tradition. And it would be a big loss to the civic experience of Granite Staters.