MANCHESTER, NH – President Joe Biden easily won New Hampshire an unusual Democratic presidential election As of Tuesday’s writing, NBC News projects he has beaten two longtime contenders whose names are on the ballot.
With more 35% Despite the expected vote count, Biden won two-thirds of the vote, almost 50 percent ahead of his competition. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., was a distant second with about 20% of the vote. And self-help author Marianne Williamson had about 4%.
Biden’s name was not on the ballot and the primary won’t award delegates because it was held in defiance of the Democratic National Committee, which wanted South Carolina to hold its primary before New Hampshire.
Biden did not run in New Hampshire, alienating many local Democrats because he was the one who directed the DNC to rewrite the primary schedule to end New Hampshire’s 100-year reign as the nation’s first state.
Phillips and Williamson tried to capitalize on Biden’s indifference and Democrats’ concerns about Biden. Phillips went to New Hampshire and told Democratic voters that Biden couldn’t beat presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, was too old and needed to be replaced.
This didn’t work.
Biden is unopposed and on track to win more votes than President Barack Obama did when he ran for re-election in 2012.
Phillips, meanwhile, may not quite reach its ambitious goal of clearing 20%.
Biden has impressed with a write-in campaign organized largely by New Hampshire Democrats who want to avoid the embarrassment of finishing behind one of their rivals.
Biden’s allies are now hoping a landslide victory will calm Democrats’ nerves and end any other run-ins against him in the primary campaign.
“What Joe Biden and the Democrats really need is for Dean Phillips to just go away and not have any momentum,” said Jim Messina, who managed Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
Phillips and Williamson are both signed up to attend this weekend’s fundraising dinner at the Feb. 3 primary reception in South Carolina.
Meanwhile, the Biden campaign continues shakes2020 campaign manager Jennifer O’Malley Dillon has left her post at the White House to take the reins of the Delaware campaign.
The New Hampshire secretary of state said votes are counted as long as the voter’s intentions can be reasonably determined, so the misspelling of Biden’s name is acceptable.