If you looked at the results of New Hampshire’s Democratic primary and were hoping for a progressive breakthrough, you probably felt a little disappointed.
Karishma Manzur did not beat Chris Pappas in the U.S. Senate race. Paige Beauchemin did not unseat Maggie Goodlander. Carleigh Beriont did not come out on top in the 1st Congressional District.
On paper, the Establishment won, but I don’t think that is the whole story.
In fact, I think focusing solely on who won these races is ignoring one of the most interesting things that is happening in New Hampshire politics: Progressives are becoming impossible to ignore. Take Karishma Manzur’s campaign, for example.
Manzur was never supposed to be the obvious choice. She was running against a sitting member of Congress with years of political experience, and established connections and support from some of the biggest names in the Democratic Party. She was also running on a much more Progressive platform, openly challenging the idea that Democrats need to choose the safest or most politically convenient option…and she still received roughly one-third of the Democratic vote.
This is not a landslide victory, but it is also not a political fringe that can simply be dismissed. It means that a significant number of New Hampshire Democrats looked at the candidates in front of them and decided they wanted something different.
That should get people’s attention.
I think there is a tendency in Democratic politics to treat Progressive candidates as if they are constantly asking for voters to take some huge ideological leap. But for many younger voters, the things Progressives are talking about do not feel particularly radical, they feel like basic questions about what the government is supposed to do.
Can people afford healthcare and housing?
Should corporations have so much influence over elections versus ordinary voters?
Should reproductive Healthcare actually be accessible?
Should working people be able to afford a life without working multiple jobs?
These are not abstract questions for college students and young adults; they are things that we are going to be dealing with for decades. That is why I think Manzur’s campaign matters, even if she lost. There is something refreshing about a candidate who is willing to say what she actually believes instead of spending an entire campaign trying to convince voters that she is the most reasonable person in the room.
Politics has become obsessed with electability. We hear about it constantly: Who can win the general election, who can appeal to Independents, who can raise enough money and who can avoid alienating anyone. Obviously, those questions matter, candidates need to win elections if they want to govern, but at some point we have to ask what we are actually winning for. A political party cannot build its entire identity around avoiding losing.
That is part of why Progressive candidates are so important; they force Democrats to have conversations they might otherwise avoid. They push the party to explain what it actually stands for rather than simply explaining why it is better than Republicans and this primary showed that people are listening. Manzur was not the only one.
Paige Beauchemin and Carleigh Beriont also ran campaigns that represented a more Progressive direction for New Hampshire Democrats; neither won, but their campaigns contributed to something bigger than a single election. They helped create a political environment where Progressive ideas are being discussed as actual possibilities rather than dismissed before the conversation even starts. That is especially important for young voters.
College students are constantly told that we need to participate in politics. We are told to register, we are told to vote and we are told that our generation is going to shape the future. But if young people show up and say this is what we want, politicians cannot then turn around and tell us that our ideas are unrealistic simply because they are inconvenient. If Democrats want young voters to stay engaged, they need to give them something to be excited about.
This does not mean every Democrat needs to become a Democratic Socialist overnight, but it does mean the party needs to take the fact that many young voters are looking for candidates who are willing to challenge the status quo instead of simply managing it seriously. New Hampshire is actually a pretty interesting place for that fight.
This is the state that likes to think of itself as politically independent. We take pride in our “Live Free or Die” identity and our distrust of political establishments, yet when it comes to elections, we can sometimes end up choosing the candidate who feels like the safest rather than the candidate who offers the biggest change. Maybe that is not surprising, but I also don’t think it has to stay that way.
The lesson Progressives should take from this primary is not that New Hampshire voters don’t want Progressive Politics, but rather Progressive candidates need to get better at building a movement around these politics. They need stronger organizations, they need more volunteers, they need to start earlier, they need to reach voters who do not already consider themselves Progressive, but most importantly they need to stop treating every election as a referendum on whether their ideas are acceptable. Because if a candidate can enter a Statewide race, challenge an established politician and earn roughly a third of the vote, there is clearly an audience there.
The question is, what happens next? Manzur lost, but I don’t think the Progressive Movement lost.
Political change rarely happens in one primary. Sometimes, the candidate loses and the idea survives; sometimes the candidate loses and the next candidate takes what they built and goes further. Maybe that is what this primary will be remembered for. Not the year New Hampshire rejected progressivism, but the year New Hampshire progressives proved they were a real force in the Democratic Party. And honestly, I’d rather see a candidate lose while fighting for something she believes in than win while showing voters that she believes nothing at all.
The primary is over. The argument isn’t.
Charlotte McDaniel can be contacted at
cm1621@usnh.edu
