At Sharpton's NAN Conference, Activists Take Aim At 2028 FITN Primary

By Leonard Robinson, NH Journal

Sens. Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen may have done the right thing for good government when they broke with their party and voted to end last year’s government shutdown.

But they didn’t do New Hampshire’s First in the Nation primary any favors.

That was the view of Democrats and progressive activists at Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network (NAN) conference in New York City this week.

NAN, a left-wing civil rights organization headed by former presidential candidate Rev. Al Sharpton, has positioned its annual gathering as an early forum for Democratic candidates seeking to build inroads with Black voters. Speakers for the week include former Vice President Kamala Harris, former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Govs. Josh Shapiro (Pa.), Wes Moore (Md.), JB Pritzker (Ill.), Andy Beshear (Ky.), and California Rep. Ro Khanna.

Attendees who spoke to NHJournal on Wednesday said they want South Carolina to go first again in 2028, just as it did in 2024. Then-President Joe Biden made the move in an attempt to boost his fading fortunes, but conference attendees argued the Palmetto State more demographically and ideologically representative of the party’s base.

Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-Pa.) speaks to the National Action Network in New York City on April 8, 2026. (Credit: Leonard Robinson)

“Democrats should certainly begin their campaign cycle in South Carolina, especially as Black people deliver so many votes and so much support for the Democratic Party,” Rhonda Harrison, a New York City NAN member, told NHJournal. “Why are we allowing white people in New Hampshire to set the agenda?”

And it’s not just demographics.

Harison Clark, senior civic engagement director for NAN’s Teen Empowerment Center based in Boston, told NHJournal that New Hampshire Democrats are not supportive enough of the party’s broader policies to be leading the contest.

“They [New Hampshire Democrats] are going through a little bit of remaking as far as the Democratic Party itself,” Clark told NHJournal. “Members of the party have not upheld their end of the bargain as far as voting within party lines and sort of straying away from the values that I assumed they would uphold for their constituents — Maggie Hassan in particular.”

Both Hassan and Shaheen were key players in brokering a deal between Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the White House to end the 2025 government shutdown. New Hampshire Reps. Chris Pappas and Maggie Goodlander both denounced the vote, as did Shaheen’s own daughter Stefany — who is running in the NH01 Democratic primary.

While New Hampshire Democrats have backed progressive presidential candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, they’ve embraced more traditional Democrats like Hassan and Shaheen to represent the state. That puts New Hampshire at odds with NAN, whose policy agenda is also decidedly to the left: Socialized medicine, reinstating all federal DEI programs, and opposition to voter ID laws.

Khanna and Shapiro addressed the conference on Wednesday.

Rep. Ro Khanna at the National Action Network conference, April 8, 2026.(CREDIT: Leonard Robinson)

Khanna, who represents an affluent Silicon Valley district, leaned into his personal story as the son of Indian immigrants. He also touted his progressive record, including placing 100,000 Black Americans into tech jobs.

He bragged about his bipartisan effort with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) to force the release of all of Epstein’s files and make former Attorney General Pam Bondi appear before the House Intelligence Committee.

And the presence of Shapiro didn’t prevent him from accusing Israel of committing “genocide.”

Khanna has become a Granite State regular, making at least four appearances in the state over the past year.

Asked by NHJournal if New Hampshire should keep its spot as the First in the Nation primary, Khanna dodged, merely saying that both South Carolina and New Hampshire should be among the early states.

“Both need to be part of the conversation and part of the early states,” Khanna said. “Who starts first? I leave to the DNC. But as long as they’re both early states, that’s what matters.”

Shapiro began his remarks by criticizing Trump’s handling of the Iran war and boasting of successfully suing the Trump administration on 23 occasions. He also told the NAN conference that, as governor, he successfully implemented a DEI agenda that resulted in a 40% government procurement jump for services by Black-owned businesses in the Keystone State.

Shapiro used his speech to connect the attack on the Pennsylvania Governor’s Mansion last year during Passover to rising rates of antisemitism and, more broadly, racism and Islamophobia across the country. This led to an odd moment when he referred to Rev. Marshall Mitchell of Salem Baptist Church in Abington, Pa., as his “pastor.”

Amid an awkward silence from the crowd, Shapiro quipped, “What? I can’t go to a Baptist church?”

Sharpton and National Action Network have remained neutral on whether the Palmetto State should lead the contest. Nonetheless, Sharpton has spent years criticizing the Democratic Party’s outreach to Black voters and famously ignored New Hampshire during his 2004 presidential campaign, instead opting to campaign in states with larger Black populations, such as South Carolina and Louisiana.

Sharpton earned a mere 347 votes during the 2004 New Hampshire presidential primary.

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.