She spoke hours before Trump was scheduled to hold a rally Saturday night at SNHU Arena in Manchester.
Trump held a 16-percentage point lead over fellow Republican Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, in a Suffolk University/Boston Globe/NBC-10 poll of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters this month.
In Nashua, Wu said Trump’s presidency unleashed hate and pitted local officials against the federal government to protect constituents.
“We barely survived that period of time as a country, as a democracy,” Wu said.
She addressed the crowd with Democratic US Representative Annie Kuster of New Hampshire on behalf of the “Write-In Biden” campaign, which is trying to deliver the president a primary win on Tuesday.
The campaign has formed a super PAC and turned to Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey to help recruit volunteers. US Representative Ro Khanna of California also traveled to New Hampshire this weekend to support the write-in effort.
The Democratic National Committee — upset with New Hampshire Democrats for refusing to relinquish their role hosting the first primary in the presidential nominating process — has called the voting “meaningless” and “detrimental,” and said it won’t apportion delegates based on the results. At events, supporters of the write-in effort displayed large versions of the Democratic primary ballot with an arrow pointing to the spot where voters can fill in Biden’s name.
In Nashua, Kuster reviewed instructions for writing in the president’s name.
“It’s very easy to spell,” she said. “J-O-E B-I-D-E-N.”
There are 21 Democrats whose names will appear on the ballot, including US Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota and Marianne Williamson, a bestselling author.
Undeclared voters in New Hampshire can participate in either party’s primary, and nearly two-thirds of likely Democratic primary voters in the state have said they plan to write in Biden’s name, according to a November survey from the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.
New Hampshire officials have said their state must go first on the primary calendar, per a decades-old state law, while the Democratic National Committee pushed to give more diverse voices a say earlier in the nominating process, as directed by Biden.
The plan the party approved pushed South Carolina’s primary to first place on the nominating calendar, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada on the same day. The schedule broke with the traditional order of Iowa holding the first-in-the-nation caucuses, and New Hampshire following with the first-in-the-nation primary.
New Hampshire ultimately flouted the national party calendar, scheduling its primary for Tuesday. As a result, the state could face sanctions, such as the national party refusing to recognize the state’s delegates at the convention in Chicago in August.
In an interview, Kuster said delivering a primary win for Biden would show the DNC the significance of New Hampshire’s role in the presidential nominating process.
“There will be more people who recognize the value of having our primary,” she said.
Addressing voters in Nashua, Kuster recalled the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when rioters loyal to Trump attempted to keep him in power by trying to prevent Congress from counting Electoral College votes to formalize Biden’s victory.
Kuster said she was among the last members of Congress evacuated from the Capitol and avoided a confrontation with insurrectionists by about 30 seconds. If the rioters had prevailed and Congress couldn’t reconvene to certify Biden’s win, Kuster said, “You all would have woken up to a very different America, with chaos and confusion.”
Democratic state Representative Latha Mangipudi of Nashua, who was born in India, said if Trump prevails in November, she has “no choice” but to leave the country.
“It is a quite existential threat to diversity, inclusion, and democracy in this country,” she said. “Write in Joe Biden. That’s why I want to do everything I can.”
At noon, supporters of the write-in campaign for Biden gathered in downtown Manchester, where police had already set up barricades outside SNHU Arenaand supporters were gathering for Trump’s rally.
Anthony Brewer, a Roxbury resident who is active in the Democratic Party, used a bullhorn to lead the crowd in chants.
“The country is actually coming back under Biden,” Brewer said. “We want you to get out, get to the polls and do what?”
“Write in Biden!,” the crowd yelled.
KR Epstein, who leads the write-in campaign’s organizing efforts in Manchester, said a Biden victory in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary would tell the nation, “We’re choosing democracy over dictatorship.”
It’s “just incredibly important. I know that New Hampshire is going to send that message,” she said.
Donna Soucy, a state senator from Manchester, said New Hampshire “knows how to do democracy, and the primary is very important.” She said she plans to spend Tuesday holding signs for Biden and encouraging voters to write in his name.
“We have a state-run primary. The party doesn’t have any say over it,” she said.
Rich Sigel, who lives in Manchester, said, “We need to show the world and the country that Joe Biden is the president we need going forward.”
The Trump supporters gathering nearby for a rally, he said, are “exactly why Joe Biden needs to come out of here strong.”
“He’s beaten Donald Trump once,” Sigel said. “He’s the candidate who will beat him again.”
Laura Crimaldi can be reached at laura.crimaldi@globe.com. Follow her @lauracrimaldi.
