Source: Politics<\/p>\n
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. \u2014 Dean Phillips isn\u2019t likely to hurt Joe Biden in New Hampshire. But his entry into the Democratic primary could spoil Nikki Haley and Chris Christie\u2019s electoral math here.<\/p>\n
The two Republicans are polling better than any other candidate with New Hampshire independents who are likely to pull a GOP ballot in the state\u2019s open presidential primary. That\u2019s a major boost in a state where independents make up the largest share of the electorate \u2014 and where the lack of a serious contest on the Democratic side meant many of them were poised to vote in the Republican primary.<\/p>\n
But by challenging Biden, Phillips gave those voters another choice. Less than a month after launching his campaign, the Minnesota lawmaker is already pulling in 10 percent support among independents in a recent poll<\/a> of likely Democratic primary voters.<\/p>\n And suddenly, Haley and Christie are encountering independent voters at their town halls who may not vote in the Republican primary after all.<\/p>\n \u201cI would like to hear Dean Phillips,\u201d Larry Gray, a Newcastle independent, said about an hour after telling Christie at a recent business roundtable that he was backing the former New Jersey governor.<\/p>\n Diane Noble, a Nashua independent who\u2019s interested in Haley and Christie, said at a town hall for the former South Carolina governor that she\u2019ll \u201cabsolutely\u201d be doing her due diligence on the Democratic side now that Phillips is in.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Dean Phillips runs the kind of race that he says he\u2019s going to run \u2026 then all independents will be up for grabs,\u201d said Mike Dennehy, a veteran GOP operative in New Hampshire.<\/p>\n And that, he said, is \u201charmful to Chris Christie and to Nikki Haley.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s difficult in this notoriously late-breaking state to predict the extent to which a Democratic contest \u2014 and a messy one, with Biden not on the ballot and his allies running a write-in campaign on his behalf \u2014 will affect Haley and Christie\u2019s vote counts. And Christie is dismissing Phillips as a threat to his chances in the state where both candidates are staking their campaigns.<\/p>\n \u201cDean Phillips doesn\u2019t really concern me at all. I think we\u2019ll be fine,\u201d Christie told reporters after a recent campaign stop in Derry. \u201cThe Republican primary is a much more attractive option for stopping Donald Trump, and I think that\u2019s what a lot of independents want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n But both Christie and Haley have been rising in recent polls of the first primary state in no small part because of the support they\u2019re earning from independents. Polling averages<\/a> now show them in second and third place, respectively, in New Hampshire, where even a marginal shift in the electorate could alter the trajectory of their campaigns.<\/p>\n Independents make up just over 39 percent of the state\u2019s voters with Republicans and Democrats both around 30 percent. More than 3,500 Democrats switched to unenrolled \u2014 New Hampshire\u2019s term for independents \u2014 ahead of the state\u2019s early October deadline to change party affiliation for the Jan. 23 primary.<\/p>\n Pro-Christie groups had urged Democrats to switch<\/a> ahead of the deadline. Now, both Phillips and the Democrats running the Biden write-in effort say they\u2019re looking to pull independents back to their side.<\/p>\n \u201cThis gives independents now a chance to focus on where they want to cast their ballots,\u201d Jim Demers, one of the architects of the Biden write-in effort, said in an interview. \u201cKnowing that Donald Trump in all likelihood is going to win here in New Hampshire, I think there may be some independents who are rethinking about \u2018maybe I\u2019ll write in Joe Biden\u2019s name instead.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Phillips is already drawing some independent support at the margins. Nine weeks out from the 2024 primary in New Hampshire, a University of New Hampshire\/CNN poll showed<\/a> 10 percent of independents likely to vote in the Democratic contest would cast ballots for the Minnesota lawmaker, compared to 61 percent who said they would write in Biden\u2019s name.<\/p>\n Independents have a long history of changing the course of presidential primaries in New Hampshire. They boosted Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman<\/a> to second and third place, respectively, in the 2012 GOP primary. Exit polls<\/a> also show they helped hand Trump his first primary win in 2016 and powered Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side that year.<\/p>\n This year, it\u2019s Haley and Christie who appear to be benefiting the most from independents\u2019 interest as they vie to be the main contender against the former president. A University of New Hampshire\/CNN poll of<\/a> 994 likely Republican primary voters showed Haley with 25 percent support among independents and Christie and Trump with 24 percent apiece. No other candidate got above 15 percent support from independents in the online survey conducted Nov. 10-14.<\/p>\n