Tradition appears to be holding firm as the parties look to the 2024 primary and caucus schedules and President Joe Biden considers making his home state of Delaware the host of the nation’s first 2024 contest.
Democrats have been most aggressive in suggesting that a state with a population that looks more like party voters go first — not Iowa or New Hampshire, which are seen as too white and rural.
But they’ve shelved plans until after the midterm elections. Some argue that a shift announced now would hurt the reelection prospects of New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, who barely won in 2016.
Republicans have been more skeptical of changing the schedule, a position echoed by former Vice President Mike Pence, a potential 2024 candidate.
In New Hampshire today, on what was viewed as a recon mission for his campaign, Pence was blunt in rejecting talk of taking the Granite State’s first-in-the-nation primary status away.
“New Hampshire is the first-in-the-nation primary. Period. Paragraph,” he said in old-school newspaper style.
“I just think tradition is important,” he added of the schedule of having Iowa host the first caucus and New Hampshire the first primary in presidential elections.
“I’ve never spent a lot of time in New Hampshire, but I may someday,” said Pence during a Politics & Eggs breakfast hosted by Saint Anselm College.
“I remember Sen. Richard Lugar, the late Sen. Richard Lugar, was a great friend of mine who had a short sojourn into presidential politics in 1996. Sen. Lugar told me one time memorably how much he enjoyed being in New Hampshire. He said, ‘Mike, there’s nowhere in America that reminded me more of Indiana than New Hampshire.’ And in my little experience here, the privilege I had to come and go, I think I’m starting to figure out what he meant. Strong communities, strong families, strong commitment to bedrock values that made the country great. That, to me,” said Pence, “must remain the cauldron in which we forge American leadership for generations to come.”
