The Media Frenzy Surrounding New Hampshire’s GOP Teens: ‘Politics Is My Sport’

The obsessive national focus on New Hampshire’s primaries has given the state’s hyper-engaged teens fame and power. This could be the end of it.

Nikki Haley meets with patrons during a campaign stop at Mary Ann's Diner in Derry, N.H.
Youth play a unique role in the New Hampshire primaries. But is that soon to change? Matt Rourke/AP

GOFFSTOWN, N.H. — After months of speculation in the press, James Thibault, 18, finally made his 2024 presidential primary endorsement in a live interview with CNN broadcast from an Amherst diner Monday morning.

It was his third national news interview focused on which Republican candidate for president this teenager would cast his first-ever, first-in-the-nation primary vote for.

Initially, he told The Wall Street Journal in September he had been backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, but was leaning toward Vivek Ramaswamy because the businessman was doing a better job energizing young voters. In a Boston Globe interview published Jan. 11, Thibault then said he was still “really torn” between DeSantis and Ramaswamy…