In this episode, Josh is trying to walk Santos through the “retail politics” of the New Hampshire primary. New Hampshire and Iowa historically have been the first states in the primary process. The New Hampshire primary is conducted with a popular vote, and in the largely independent state voters do not have to declare affiliation with a party to vote in that party’s primary. Although candidates do not have a large pool of delegates to win, if they do well in these states they can gain momentum that could lead to them being their party’s nominee. These primaries have also weeded out unsuccessful campaigns, ending them before they can move on to larger states. As pointed out in the episode, these primaries have allowed the lesser-known candidates to contend with a party’s frontrunner, opening the field for those who otherwise wouldn’t have the resources to run for president.

It was previously speculated that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is running against Trump to be the Republican nominee, would have a breakthrough in New Hampshire. However, in the current news cycle DeSantis has received criticism for his politicking in the state. This criticism reached its peak when the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women attacked DeSantis for planning an event “in opposition to” their annual fundraising luncheon, which his opponent, former President Trump, would be headlining. Desantis dismissed their complaint, pointing to the fact that his event was at a different time and in a different part of the state among other things. But in what a Republican strategist called “ the worst strategic move he has exhibited thus far,” DeSantis has only dug him into a deeper hole. Although it seems entitled of the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women to be angry about the scheduling of the event in the first place, given that overlapping events are not all that uncommon,  the whole fiasco shows just how much power lies in the New Hampshire primaries. DeSantis has made enemies of important grassroots activists all the while garnering negative media coverage.

Many people think that New Hampshire shouldn’t be the first primary. New Hampshire is 92.6% white compared to 75.5% for the country as a whole according to the United States Census Bureau. Given how much power the voters in this state have, it is argued that a state that better represents the ethnic makeup of the country should be the first primary. This has actually prompted the Democrats to move their first primary, putting South Carolina before New Hampshire, which will share its primary date with Nevada, followed by Georgia and Michigan, moving Iowa even further back. Given that South Carolina is so much bigger than New Hampshire, retail politics doesn’t really work there. This means that it will be harder for a candidate without a lot of money or name recognition to gain momentum and get the nomination.