On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, for which President Joe Biden declined to put his name on the ballot, Fox News host Jesse Watters told viewers that a write-in campaign pushed by Biden’s supporters is being led in part by his uncle, a state senator.
“In the interest of full transparency,” the co-host of The Five said Monday while in the Granite state, “my uncle is in charge of the ‘write-in for Biden’ campaign here in New Hampshire.”
“He is a Democrat—you guessed it—state senator here,” Watters continued.
The Fox host appeared to be referring to State Sen. David Watters (D-Dover), who later in the evening posted on social media a photograph of himself with Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) and other Biden supporters holding signs encouraging voters to write in the president’s name.
The lawmaker did not return a request for comment.
On Fox, Watters relayed a discussion with his uncle about the write-in campaign.
“I just got off the phone with him, and he said they had to do it because the rule is in the state constitution,” Watters said, referring to the New Hampshire state law requiring that it hold the nation’s first primary.
“They have to have a primary. The DNC made a dumb decision, and they wanted to show their support for Joe Biden, so they raised money for signs, and for all the grassroots efforts,” he recalled.
Biden opted not to fill out the necessary paperwork to have his name on the ballot for the New Hampshire primary, having instead pushed for South Carolina’s primary to leapfrog it—a move supported and arranged by the Democratic National Committee, which has said it won’t count delegates acquired Tuesday at this summer’s nominating convention. The change naturally did not go over well with many New Hampshire politicians and voters.
Watters continued: “I say, ‘Is this thing going to be close? Is he barely going to put away this Dean character?” he said, referring to Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), who launched his long-shot campaign in New Hampshire last October and who trails Biden by 45 points in an Emerson College poll conducted a few days ago.
“He goes, ‘I don’t care. If he wins by one vote, it’s fine with me,’” Watters said.
The New Hampshire state senator isn’t the only relative of Watters’ who’s a Democrat. On the first night of his primetime show last summer, the Fox News host got some advice over the phone from his mother, who told him to “not tumble into any conspiracy rabbit holes.”