Trump? Biden? New Hampshire? No Guarantees for 2024 Campaign Season – By Susan Milligan (US News) / Dec 16, 2022
Once, it seemed as if presidential campaigns would start earlier and earlier – and always in New Hampshire. But with Trump and Biden’s status this year as unsettled as that of the Granite State, neither is guaranteed anymore.
It was a cold winter day when then-Sen. Barack Obama trudged up to New Hampshire to gauge interest in a presidential run. It was also stunningly early in the campaign season: Dec. 10, 2006, nearly two years before the general election for president and 13 months before the famously first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire, a state Obama had never set foot in before appearing at packed events in Manchester and Portsmouth.
His rival for the nomination, Hillary Clinton, made her maiden campaign trip to New Hampshire in February 2007 – eight months ahead of the schedule her husband, Bill Clinton, had when he sought the 1992 nomination for president.
It seemed, in the lead-up to the 2008 election, that something new and something old would be the pattern going forward: Presidential campaigns would start earlier and earlier, with the field sometimes narrowing even before a single nominating contest was held, and New Hampshire would always be Destination One for presidential hopefuls.
With the 2024 campaign season looming, neither of those things is true – or at least guaranteed – anymore. The Democratic National Committee is moving to strip both New Hampshire and Iowa of their longtime status as first in line to hold nominating contests. The candidate fields are still very much unformed, as presidential hopefuls in both parties await developments that could affect both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
