Some of his backers rushed to draw contrasts Thursday between New Hampshire’s primary and the complex ― and this year, highly chaotic — Iowa caucuses, a contest that they said did not fully represent the diversity of Democratic voters and would not ultimately define “electability” in the general election.

In his stead, the Biden campaign is dispatching an army of surrogates across New Hampshire over the next few days as he fell to third place in Wednesday’s Boston Globe/WBZ-TV/Suffolk University poll.

MANCHESTER, N.H. ― Despite needing a momentum boost after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses, former Vice President Joe Biden was off the campaign trail here Thursday to meet with advisers and prep for Friday’s presidential debate as he tries to steady his once front-running campaign.


“New Hampshire has a different idea of who should be the next president,” said Steve Shurtleff, speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. “Not that the people in Iowa don’t put a lot into the campaigns, but it’s such a different system. It is so much simpler here with a direct vote of the people.”

Ned Helms, former chairman of the Democratic Party in New Hampshire and co-chairman for Obama in 2008 and 2012, said Biden started staffing up in the state in April, later than some of the other campaigns, but quickly caught up over the summer. He argued Biden’s campaign structure and ground game were in much better shape than they had been in Iowa.

“We have been doing what we are supposed to be doing,” he said. “I don’t pay attention to the polls. I pay attention to how many doors have we knocked, how many people have you committed.”

At least one of Biden’s top donors said he wasn’t spooked by the Iowa implosion.

John Morgan, a Florida plaintiff’s lawyer, said he saw an upshot to what Biden called “a gut punch." He argued that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg won big in the Iowa caucuses, but the extra attention on them could make voters in later states realize they aren’t the best suited to go against President Trump in the general election.


“Iowa is a good thing because it becomes a wake-up call,” Morgan said.

Early results from the problem-plagued caucuses showed Biden in fourth place there with 16 percent of the state delegates with 97 percent of the precincts reporting.

A high-level aide with the Biden campaign who did not want to be named on Thursday said it wasn’t time to write off the former vice president, pointing to his fiery first speech in New Hampshire after the Iowa caucuses on Wednesday in which he tore into Sanders and Buttigieg, as well as powerful moments in a CNN town hall Wednesday night.

During the town hall, Biden talked about his struggles to overcome stuttering as a child and connecting with his audience over empathy, grief and personal loss. Those produced viral video clips.

Biden staffers and aides reportedly were trying to reassure donors and grappling with the fallout from a disappointing performance in Iowa. Early results from the problem-plagued caucuses showed Biden in fourth place there with 16 percent of the state delegates with 97 percent of the precincts reporting.

Biden also dropped to third place in the Globe’s poll of likely voters in New Hampshire on Wednesday. Buttigieg surged into second place with 19 percent behind Sanders at 25 percent. Biden fell to 12 percent from 18 percent in Monday’s poll.


His wife, Jill Biden, made a Thursday morning appearance with former New Hampshire Governor John Lynch at a Manchester cafe and addressed voters at an afternoon house party in Hunter. Olympic Figure Skater Michelle Kwan and a bevy of top state elected officials were scheduled to meet with phone bankers and canvassers through Tuesday. And a campaign e-mail sent to supporters Thursday called for donations to meet a modest $600,000 debate fund-raising goal.

Reach Jazmine Ulloa at jazmine.ulloa@globe.com or on Twitter: @jazmineulloa