Transplanted Lowellians voting in today’s first in the nation primary are getting the added bonus of seeing their former home city appear on the ballot.

Darius Mitchell, who has on at least two occasions run unsuccessful campaigns for Lowell City Council, qualified for the New Hampshire Republican Primary and is the 22nd name in a field of 24 candidates on the ballot. And while Mitchell isn’t going to throw a scare into former President Donald Trump, or Nikki Haley for that matter, he did garner as much attention as any other also-ran still active in the race, becoming part of the discussion last week on Boston sports talk radio for a commercial in which he declared himself the “Hip-Hop Republican.”

In the past, Mitchell has also attempted to run for U.S. Senate in 2018 and Massachusetts Governor in 2022.

While the “Hip-Hop” candidate will become just another footnote in the Granite State’s interesting primary history, where qualifying for the ballot isn’t all that difficult compared to other states, seeing Lowell, Massachusetts pop up on the ballot brought back fond memories for this then Emerson College student who got to cover a more successful Lowellian’s effort in our neighboring state.

Former Senator Paul Tsongas won the 1992 New Hampshire Democratic Primary. The Son of Lowell topped Bill Clinton in a race that also included highly regarded Senators at the time, Bob Kerrey (Nebraska) and Tom Rankin (Iowa), who finished third and fourth respectively. Flamboyant former Governors Jerry Brown (California) and Mario Cuomo (New York) took fifth and sixth place in the voting that year.