New Hampshire Voters Turn Out in Droves To
Make A Brilliant, Difficult First Cut in the 2008 Presidential Race
The New
Hampshire Presidential Primary results point to a long, hard road to a narrow
victory in November for the next President of the United States. New Hampshire voters turned out in record
numbers, 526,520 to be exact, to pass judgment on the 42 filed and 395 write-in
candidates for President. By comparison,
569,069 votes were cast for president in New Hampshire General Election in the
Bush-Gore race in 2000; and 677,768 were cast in the Bush-Kerry contest four
years later. For a primary, where voters
must declare a party affiliation in which to vote, gets a voter turnout 77.69%
as large as the highest turnout in General Election history, where anyone can
vote and the ballot is completely secret, is a tremendous accomplishment. The primary turnout was 26.13% higher than
the 2006 off-year General Election.
The race was far more evenly
balanced than the two party press would lead people to
expect. There were 21 candidates who
filed in the Republican primary and 21 candidates who filed in the Democratic
primary. There were another 395 write-in
candidates, 191 Republicans and 204 Democrats.
So, far from the dozen candidates covered by the media, the half million
voters in New Hampshire chose from a diverse menu of 427. In the top twenty-one was a Mayor of a major
city, five Governors, five members of the House of Representatives, and seven
Senators.
New
Hampshire actually has a non-partisan primary.
Although voters must choose a party primary in which to vote, 1.7176% of
the Republicans, or 4,103 voters; and 0.66% of the Democrats, or 1,899 voters,
cast write-in votes for candidates in the other party’s primary. So, in the end, 236,697 (44.95%) votes were
cast for the Republican candidates, about 20,000 less than the total number of
registered Republicans, and 289,841 (55.05%) were cast for the Democratic
candidates, almost 70,000 more than the number of registered Democrats. If anyone thinks one party or the other is
going to run away with the November election, they are not paying attention to
the independent voters. At the moment,
the Democrats are in the lead, but not so far in the lead.
So, who won? Counting all the votes equally the results
are:
1.
Hillary Clinton,
114,199 (21.69%)
2.
Barack Obama, 106,669 (20.26%)
3.
John McCain, 89,358
(16.97%)
4.
Mitt Romney, 76,056
(14.45%)
5.
John Edwards, 49,451
(9.39%)
6.
Mike Huckabee, 27,068 (5.14%)
7.
Rudolf Guliani, 20,573 (3.9%)
8.
Ron Paul, 18,536
(3.52%)
9.
Bill Richardson 13,418
(2.55%)
10. Dennis Kucinich, 3,913 (0.74%)
11. Fred Thompson, 2,904 (0.55%)
12. Duncan Hunter, 1,222 (0.23%)
13. Joe Biden, 647 (0.12%)
14. Mike Gravel, 409 (0.077%)
15. Richard Caligiuri, 254 (0.048%)
16. Alan Keyes, 207 (0.039%)
17. Chris Dodd, 205 (0.039%)
18. Stephen Marchuk, 128 (0.024%)
19. Kenneth Capalbo, 108 (0.021%)
20. D. R. Hunter, 98 (0.0186%)
21. Tom Tancredo, 80 (0.0152%)
I’ll stop at the top
half. Anyone interested in the
candidates who received 1/100th of a percent or less should look at
the total returns at the bottom. It is
well to remember, for those who complain about the smallness of the New
Hampshire Primary, that Tom Tancredo is a United States Representative from
Colorado who ran a serious campaign. He
got only 80 votes. Chris Dodd, a United
States Senator from Connecticut got 205.
Mike Gravel, a United States Senator from Alaska got 409 and Joe Biden a
United States Senator from Delaware got 647.
Dennis Kucinich who ran an energetic, national campaign barely made it
into the top ten.
To put this in perspective, Obama
and Clinton ran seventh and eighth respectively in the Republican Primary; they
both received more Republican votes than: Duncan Hunter, a Republican
Congressman from California; Alan Keyes, who lost to Obama
in the Illinois Senate race and refused to congratulate Obama
because of his stand on abortion; and Tom Tancredo, the anti-immigration zealot
Congressman from Colorado.
Similarly, McCain and Romney ran sixth and eighth
respectively in the Democratic Primary.
McCain ran ahead of Joe Biden, a Senator from Delaware and both ran
ahead of Mike Gravel and Chris Dodd, two other Senators. Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee
also ran ahead of Dodd in the Democratic primary. Clearly, voters in New Hampshire
take their franchise very seriously.
While Hillary Clinton defeated Barack Obama in the Democratic
Primary 112,606 (39.15%) to 105,004 (36.50%); Obama
defeated Clinton in the Republican primary 1,665 (0.697%) to 1,593
(0.6669%). Look at how close that is, 72
votes, or 0.03%. This proves that
prediction polls are a blunt instrument.
Fox News even had exit polls giving Obama 39%
and Clinton 34%. No honest exit poll
could be 7.65% off the final result.
This shows that some of the polls are deliberately trying to affect the
outcome of the race.
(And Romney is out of the race. Massachusetts candidates run well in abutting
New Hampshire. Sen. Paul Tsongas was the
Democratic winner in 1992. John Kerry
won in 2004. Romney was the Governor of
the neighboring state. But Romney’s
record, even as Governor of Massachusetts, is pretty weak. Romney got 1,091,988 votes in his winning
race for Governor. That puts him 9th
out of the 19 winning gubernatorial candidates in Massachusetts since World War
II. His vote total of 27.48% of the
registered voters is the second lowest in the state’s modern history. His 1,091,988 puts him behind Dukakis’s 1986
total of 1,157,786. Six of the eight
governors whose total vote beat Romney’s won before
1964, when the state’s population was smaller and the voting age was 21. By comparison, half a century ago, JFK was
winning reelection to the Senate with 1,362,926 votes, more than a quarter
million more than Romney’s total, when 1.5 million fewer voters were
registered. Even then, Kennedy only
managed to barely squeak into the White House two years later, past Vice-President
Richard Nixon, when no Vice-President had succeeded to the Presidency by
election since Martin Van Buren, 124 years before. No, Romney should have run
for re-election to the Massachusetts State House before running for President.
He,
like his father, may be a good businessman, but he is not presidential timber
at this point. If Romney is nominated,
he will lose badly.)
New Hampshire voters should be thanked for a difficult job
well done by the rest of us who rarely in our entire lives have a chance to
even see, much less meet and talk to a president of the United States. Being the object of such a campaign is not
fun. It is a lot of work and bother. We should be grateful that our fellow
citizens take this unpaid task seriously.
This election proves that the American people are not just going
shopping at the mall while soldiers are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first Congressional Medal of Honor winner
from the Iraq war, Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham, grew up in New Hampshire. Do you really think his family, neighbors and
friends went shopping during the months leading up to this primary? New Hampshire is a small enough state that
personal relationships matter. Anyone
can change a political opinion; but the attributes of character that really
count when the unpredictable happens, that is something that can only be
gleaned through repeated personal contact.
Iowa and New Hampshire voters have the job of assessing the
personalities and temperaments of the presidential candidates.
On
a personal note, the New Hampshire primary has been one of the most important
events in my life. In 1968, Eugene
McCarthy’s near defeat of Lyndon Johnson in the March 12, 1968 (note the late
date) primary prompted me to leave graduate school and go to work on McCarthy’s
campaign, where I became national press advance coordinator. I never returned to graduate school or
obtained an advanced degree, which is a small enough sacrifice compared to
those made by others during the Vietnam War; but besides this website, I’m
prouder of my work on the McCarthy campaign than anything else I’ve ever done.
When I first started analyzing election returns in 1980,
I had to wait two years, until the Blue Book was published, to get the
complete, official results of the New Hampshire Presidential Primary. In 1996, the New Hampshire presidential
primary demonstrated the power of the internet when I was able to get almost
the complete results on primary night by going on-line to a newspaper in
Plymouth, New Hampshire. A light bulb
went on over my head and we decided to move to Princeton, New Jersey. The New Hampshire Presidential Primary made
me realize that the internet would make information important and instantly
accessible. So, out of the eleven New
Hampshire Primaries that have taken place since I became eligible to vote, one
made me quit school and another made me move.
The New Hampshire presidential primary is personal politics. It is an important part of the presidential
nominating process.
In modern times,
every president won the New Hampshire primary until Bill Clinton and
three-fourths of the major party nominees.
Then George W. Bush followed suit.
The Clinton and McCain victories in their respective
primaries means that a race between two New Hampshire primary winners
looks like a good bet.
Presidential Primary Election
January 8, 2008
President of the United States -
Democratic
|
SUMMARY BY COUNTIES |
Biden, d |
Caligiuri, d |
Capalbo, d |
Clinton, d |
Crow, d |
Dodd, d |
Edwards, d |
Gravel, d |
Hewes, d |
Hughes, d |
D.R. Hunter, d |
|
|
Belknap |
36 |
16 |
9 |
4,674 |
4 |
7 |
2,362 |
17 |
- |
- |
5 |
|
|
Carroll |
32 |
4 |
4 |
3,738 |
1 |
1 |
1,809 |
13 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
|
|
Cheshire |
29 |
12 |
10 |
6,433 |
1 |
17 |
3,176 |
25 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
|
|
Coos |
16 |
22 |
7 |
3,132 |
6 |
9 |
1,600 |
13 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
Grafton |
32 |
19 |
8 |
6,864 |
- |
16 |
3,398 |
28 |
- |
4 |
3 |
|
|
Hillsborough |
196 |
76 |
22 |
33,791 |
16 |
75 |
13,236 |
152 |
8 |
1 |
26 |
|
|
Merrimack |
56 |
30 |
14 |
12,575 |
4 |
18 |
5,938 |
29 |
2 |
3 |
9 |
|
|
Rockingham |
174 |
44 |
17 |
26,708 |
1 |
41 |
10,716 |
86 |
3 |
3 |
33 |
|
|
Strafford |
49 |
24 |
10 |
11,131 |
3 |
14 |
4,854 |
31 |
1 |
2 |
12 |
|
|
Sullivan |
22 |
7 |
7 |
3,560 |
1 |
7 |
1,729 |
10 |
- |
- |
1 |
|
|
TOTALS |
642 |
254 |
108 |
112,606 |
37 |
205 |
48,818 |
404 |
17 |
16 |
95 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SUMMARY BY COUNTIES |
Keefe, d |
Killeen, d |
Koos, d |
Kucinich, d |
LaMagna, d |
Laughlin, d |
Obama, d |
Richardson, d |
Savior, d |
Skok, d |
Cort, r |
|
|
Belknap |
2 |
- |
- |
125 |
- |
- |
4,633 |
541 |
- |
- |
- |
|
|
Carroll |
2 |
1 |
1 |
182 |
- |
3 |
4,357 |
670 |
- |
- |
- |
|
|
Cheshire |
2 |
3 |
1 |
604 |
- |
6 |
7,475 |
1,134 |
3 |
5 |
- |
|
|
Coos |
- |
- |
- |
43 |
1 |
4 |
2,124 |
347 |
4 |
2 |
- |
|
|
Grafton |
6 |
- |
2 |
310 |
- |
5 |
9,794 |
1,073 |
2 |
- |
- |
|
|
Hillsborough |
14 |
3 |
2 |
869 |
6 |
12 |
28,034 |
3,578 |
7 |
12 |
- |
|
|
Merrimack |
4 |
1 |
- |
473 |
- |
4 |
13,250 |
2,034 |
5 |
1 |
- |
|
|
Rockingham |
15 |
2 |
3 |
648 |
- |
7 |
22,044 |
2,330 |
8 |
9 |
- |
|
|
Strafford |
5 |
- |
1 |
538 |
1 |
3 |
9,333 |
1,074 |
- |
2 |
- |
|
|
Sullivan |
1 |
1 |
- |
109 |
- |
3 |
3,960 |
458 |
- |
1 |
- |
|
|
TOTALS |
51 |
11 |
10 |
3,901 |
8 |
47 |
105,004 |
13,239 |
29 |
32 |
- |
|
|
SUMMARY BY COUNTIES |
Cox, r |
Fendig, Jr., r |
Gilbert, r |
Giuliani, r |
Howard, r |
Huckabee, r |
Duncan
Hunter, r |
Keyes, r |
Klein, r |
Marchuk, r |
McCain, r |
Mitchell,
Jr., r |
|
Belknap |
- |
- |
- |
13 |
- |
13 |
- |
1 |
- |
- |
38 |
0 |
|
Carroll |
- |
- |
- |
3 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
13 |
0 |
|
Cheshire |
- |
- |
- |
6 |
- |
16 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
45 |
0 |
|
Coos |
- |
- |
- |
4 |
- |
23 |
- |
- |
- |
|
26 |
0 |
|
Grafton |
- |
- |
- |
7 |
- |
8 |
1 |
- |
- |
- |
46 |
0 |
|
Hillsborough |
- |
- |
- |
17 |
- |
23 |
3 |
- |
- |
- |
146 |
0 |
|
Merrimack |
- |
- |
- |
23 |
- |
25 |
- |
2 |
- |
- |
101 |
0 |
|
Rockingham |
- |
- |
- |
45 |
- |
65 |
1 |
- |
- |
- |
255 |
0 |
|
Strafford |
- |
- |
- |
14 |
1 |
23 |
- |
1 |
- |
5 |
85 |
0 |
|
Sullivan |
- |
- |
- |
2 |
- |
13 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
33 |
0 |
|
TOTALS |
- |
- |
- |
134 |
1 |
209 |
5 |
4 |
- |
5 |
788 |
0 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SUMMARY BY COUNTIES |
O'Connor, r |
Paul, r |
Romney, r |
Shepard, r |
Supreme, r |
Tancredo, r |
Thompson, r |
Wuensche, r |
Scatter |
|
|
|
|
Belknap |
0 |
10 |
20 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
5 |
|
|
|
|
Carroll |
0 |
4 |
11 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
12 |
|
|
|
|
Cheshire |
0 |
19 |
26 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
4 |
|
|
|
|
Coos |
0 |
5 |
8 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
6 |
|
|
|
|
Grafton |
0 |
25 |
17 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
15 |
|
|
|
|
Hillsborough |
0 |
41 |
111 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
46 |
|
|
|
|
Merrimack |
0 |
40 |
75 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
23 |
|
|
|
|
Rockingham |
0 |
49 |
186 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
6 |
0 |
32 |
|
|
|
|
Strafford |
0 |
25 |
43 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
57 |
|
|
|
|
Sullivan |
0 |
11 |
13 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
4 |
|
|
|
|
TOTALS |
0 |
229 |
510 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
14 |
0 |
204 |
|
|
|
Presidential Primary Election
January 8, 2008
President of the United States -
Republican
|
SUMMARY BY COUNTIES |
Cort, r |
Cox, r |
Fendig, Jr., r |
Gilbert, r |
Giuliani, r |
Howard, r |
Huckabee, r |
Duncan
Hunter, r |
Keyes, r |
Klein, r |
Marchuk, r |
|
Belknap |
8 |
2 |
1 |
4 |
1,059 |
2 |
1,453 |
77 |
9 |
2 |
5 |
|
Carroll |
4 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
766 |
3 |
1,055 |
33 |
11 |
1 |
9 |
|
Cheshire |
6 |
1 |
3 |
3 |
834 |
4 |
1,749 |
81 |
10 |
1 |
13 |
|
Coos |
1 |
2 |
- |
2 |
405 |
3 |
860 |
17 |
10 |
- |
5 |
|
Grafton |
6 |
3 |
1 |
5 |
1,069 |
5 |
1,827 |
49 |
16 |
2 |
17 |
|
Hillsborough |
15 |
14 |
1 |
9 |
6,349 |
8 |
7,609 |
388 |
56 |
5 |
30 |
|
Merrimack |
3 |
4 |
- |
4 |
2,575 |
7 |
3,543 |
169 |
26 |
2 |
9 |
|
Rockingham |
7 |
6 |
4 |
4 |
5,271 |
7 |
5,352 |
264 |
49 |
5 |
21 |
|
Strafford |
1 |
3 |
2 |
- |
1,553 |
4 |
2,453 |
97 |
12 |
1 |
10 |
|
Sullivan |
2 |
2 |
- |
- |
558 |
1 |
958 |
42 |
4 |
- |
4 |
|
TOTALS |
53 |
39 |
13 |
33 |
20,439 |
44 |
26,859 |
1,217 |
203 |
19 |
123 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SUMMARY BY COUNTIES |
McCain, r |
Mitchell,
Jr., r |
O'Connor, r |
Paul, r |
Romney, r |
Shepard, r |
Supreme, r |
Tancredo, r |
Thompson, r |
Wuensche, r |
Biden, d |
|
Belknap |
4,820 |
2 |
9 |
931 |
4,129 |
1 |
3 |
7 |
207 |
2 |
4 |
|
Carroll |
4,138 |
2 |
2 |
836 |
3,386 |
2 |
1 |
5 |
157 |
1 |
- |
|
Cheshire |
4,270 |
4 |
1 |
1,012 |
3,085 |
- |
3 |
10 |
149 |
5 |
- |
|
Coos |
1,958 |
2 |
5 |
469 |
917 |
1 |
2 |
4 |
70 |
1 |
- |
|
Grafton |
6,524 |
5 |
3 |
1,451 |
2,904 |
3 |
3 |
1 |
227 |
11 |
- |
|
Hillsborough |
25,447 |
7 |
7 |
5,438 |
25,628 |
6 |
13 |
31 |
775 |
7 |
- |
|
Merrimack |
10,903 |
2 |
6 |
2,313 |
7,603 |
5 |
3 |
- |
280 |
4 |
- |
|
Rockingham |
21,236 |
5 |
8 |
3,787 |
21,838 |
5 |
10 |
12 |
609 |
6 |
- |
|
Strafford |
6,481 |
1 |
3 |
1,480 |
4,418 |
3 |
3 |
10 |
321 |
4 |
- |
|
Sullivan |
2,793 |
- |
1 |
590 |
1,638 |
1 |
- |
- |
95 |
3 |
1 |
|
TOTALS |
88,570 |
30 |
45 |
18,307 |
75,546 |
27 |
41 |
80 |
2,890 |
44 |
5 |
|
SUMMARY BY COUNTIES |
Caligiuri, d |
Capalbo, d |
Clinton, d |
Crow, d |
Dodd, d |
Edwards, d |
Gravel, d |
Hewes, d |
Hughes, d |
D.R. Hunter, d |
Keefe, d |
|
Belknap |
- |
- |
124 |
- |
- |
59 |
1 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
Carroll |
- |
- |
52 |
- |
- |
27 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
Cheshire |
- |
- |
119 |
7 |
- |
54 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
Coos |
- |
- |
79 |
- |
- |
39 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
Grafton |
- |
- |
96 |
- |
- |
45 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
Hillsborough |
- |
- |
237 |
- |
- |
88 |
1 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
Merrimack |
- |
- |
272 |
- |
- |
92 |
1 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
Rockingham |
- |
- |
364 |
- |
- |
125 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
Strafford |
- |
- |
177 |
- |
- |
78 |
- |
- |
- |
3 |
- |
|
Sullivan |
- |
- |
73 |
- |
- |
26 |
2 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
TOTALS |
- |
- |
1,593 |
7 |
- |
633 |
5 |
- |
- |
3 |
- |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SUMMARY BY COUNTIES |
Killeen, d |
Koos, d |
Kucinich, d |
LaMagna, d |
Laughlin, d |
Obama, d |
Richardson, d |
Savior, d |
Skok, d |
Scatter |
|
|
Belknap |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
149 |
11 |
0 |
0 |
10 |
|
|
Carroll |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
81 |
14 |
0 |
0 |
5 |
|
|
Cheshire |
0 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
144 |
31 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
|
|
Coos |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
58 |
7 |
0 |
0 |
9 |
|
|
Grafton |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
151 |
12 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
|
Hillsborough |
0 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
244 |
26 |
0 |
0 |
86 |
|
|
Merrimack |
0 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
257 |
33 |
0 |
0 |
10 |
|
|
Rockingham |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
343 |
24 |
0 |
0 |
61 |
|
|
Strafford |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
158 |
16 |
0 |
0 |
7 |
|
|
Sullivan |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
80 |
5 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
|
|
TOTALS |
0 |
0 |
12 |
1 |
0 |
1665 |
179 |
0 |
0 |
191 |
|
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