Inside New Hampshire’s Long Primary History and Winning Record

New Hampshire’s first in the nation presidential primary has two meanings. Along with going first in the national process, the Granite State was the first to hold a primary contest where voters decided on a presidential candidate rather than party officials.

First in the Nation

For most of the political history of the United States, New Hampshire State Librarian Michael York said, the primary process was left up to the political parties. The Constitution says nothing about parties because most of the Founding Fathers were opposed to them in the first place.

As parties emerged and became more organized in the 19th century, they would pick their candidates in stereotypical back-room deals, Mr. York said.

The first primaries emerged in the Midwest around the turn of the 20th century, Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire’s Survey Center, told The Epoch Times. Wisconsin held the first primaries in 1908, which was then joined by Minnesota and Indiana. New Hampshire began holding its primaries in 1916.

When people started to vote in primaries, Mr. York said in an interview with The Epoch Times, they would vote for delegates—local magnates—who would go to a party convention either committed to a candidate or uncommitted in selecting a presidential nominee.

New Hampshire’s rise to prominence began in 1920 when Indiana abdicated its first-in-the-nation status, Mr. Smith said. Back then, primaries weren’t important and people weren’t interested in them, he said.

Things began to change in the 1950s with the arrival of television. Mr. York said New Hampshire’s early primary date and location close to the media centers of New York and Washington made it a natural spot for reporters and politicians to visit. Mr. Smith credited what was known as the beauty contest, which began in 1952, for the genuine interest in the competition.

While voters still picked party delegates, in 1952 state law changed, allowing them to vote for whichever presidential candidate they liked best. The results of the non-binding election got scores of coverage as a political weathervane, Mr. Smith said.

The success of the beauty contest pushed other states to allow for a preference vote in their primaries. By 1956, the beauty contest transitioned to a direct vote for a candidate in New Hampshire and other primary states.

1968

Unquestionably, the most important event in the history of the New Hampshire presidential primaries was the 1968 Democratic Party contest. In an interview with The Epoch Times, Linda Fowler, a professor emerita of government at Dartmouth College, said the results of the 1968 primary effectively forced then-incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson not to seek reelection.

Ms. Fowler, who specialized in New Hampshire politics along with U.S. politics in general, said the primary held in March 1968 came amid a highly turbulent period of U.S. history.

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, putting President Johnson into office. In 1967, the so-called Long Hot Summer of race riots occurred across the United States, and the ongoing civil rights movement was reaching a climax. That same year, the Summer of Love phenomenon had begun in San Francisco.

During his tenure, the Johnson administration massively expanded the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War. More than 485,000 U.S. soldiers were involved in the war by the end of 1967. The Tet Offensive had just begun in January 1968.

With massive discontent and social change in the background, President Johnson was not even on the ballot in New Hampshire. Seeing an opportunity, longtime Minnesota Congressman Eugene McCarthy, an antiwar candidate, stepped into the New Hampshire race, Ms. Fowler said.

Ms. Fowler said Mr. McCarthy pushed the Democratic Party to mount a write-in campaign for President Johnson. He narrowly won, but the performance was weak enough to coax former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy into the race.

The near defeat in New Hampshire, the new candidate, and the ever-building pressure of the war, Ms. Fowler said, forced President Johnson to say he would not seek reelection nor accept the nomination. His vice president, Hubert Humphrey, entered the race in his stead and picked up the delegates previously committed to him.

Moreover, Ms. Fowler said, the chaotic events in the Democratic race of 1968 created more pressure on political parties to expand the primary system and take power away from their conventions.

Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968, when he was running second behind Mr. Humphrey in committed delegates. Longtime South Dakota Congressman George McGovern came in to replace him.

This led to a contested convention where the Democratic Party ultimately selected Mr. Humphrey as the nominee and longtime Maine Congressman Edmund Muskie as his running mate. The convention in Chicago was marred by in-fighting within the building and deadly suppression of antiwar protests outside.

The Democratic Party candidates went on to lose to another New Hampshire victor: President Richard Nixon.

Picking Presidents

Along with boosting the power of other states to voice their preference for a presidential candidate directly, New Hampshire is often a more reliable indicator of which candidate will actually win the nomination than the Iowa caucuses.

Ms. Fowler said she believes that while New Hampshire is an overwhelmingly white and middle to upper-class state, its primary system is more representative of a general election than others. She credited that to the open setup, which allows registered so-called undeclared voters to cast ballots in either the Republican or the Democratic races.

Generally, she said, primaries are undemocratic. They have a crowded field of choices and the candidate who wins usually does so with only 30 percent of the vote. The New Hampshire primaries have a higher turnout and more independent voters involved, which counterbalances the more ideological vote of committed partisans.

Not including incumbents, New Hampshire voters picked the winner of the general election or the delegates committed to them in 1932, 1952, 1960, 1968, 1976, 1980, 1988, and 2016. Its voters supported the eventual nominee for both parties in 1960, 1968, 1976, 1980, 1988, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016.

New Hampshire chose the eventual Republican nominee in the last three races where an incumbent president was not seeking the nomination: longtime Arizona Congressman John McCain in 2008, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) in 2012, and former President Donald Trump in 2016.

Mr. York said New Hampshire has a vastly inflated record when it comes to picking presidents and nominees simply because it’s been around for so long. However, he argued the retail politicking of the past and the mass media spending of the present are always crucial to swaying the independent-minded voters in New Hampshire.

Echoing Ms. Fowler, Mr. Smith said the average voter in New Hampshire is not incredibly engaged in politics and makes up their mind relatively late in the cycle. This more closely matches what happens in a general election.

Mr. Smith said being as close to Boston as most Granite Staters are means mass media is constantly becoming more important while the role of door-to-door campaigning and town halls diminishes. It’s easier than ever, he said, for candidates to fly into Manchester, New Hampshire, campaign for a bit, then fly out.

The days of campaigning like Mr. McCain did when he practically lived in the state in 2000 and again in 2008 are coming to an end, Mr. Smith said. These days, candidates need to spend massive sums in the Boston media market to win in New Hampshire.

The American voter, and the candidates, will be worse off for it, Mr. Smith said. The screwball questions at town halls clue politicians into what ordinary Americans are worried about and make the candidates better at thinking on their feet.

Mr. Smith and Mr. York said the New Hampshire presidential primary is a part of the culture of the state and a point of pride for one of the smallest members of the union.

Ms. Fowler wondered how much longer the primary will last.

She said the contest is already becoming less important as more candidates drop out before and after Iowa. The 2024 race is heavily influenced by the near-incumbency of President Trump, meaning the Granite State will only be looking at three serious candidates for the Republican nomination. In 2016, eight major candidates on the GOP side ran. In 2020, the same amount appeared on New Hampshire’s Democratic ballots.

Primaries, in general, bring out the worst in the political media, she said. Since the candidates are closely aligned on policy, the press becomes hyper-focused on minor differences and polling that is often unreliable. Outside of New Hampshire, voter turnout is often low and driven by the most ideological wings of the parties.

The Democratic Party is clearly showing signs it no longer wants to put its selection process in the hands of two white, rural states, Ms. Fowler said.

A disastrous 2020 and the new caucusing process in Iowa show the Democrats are moving on from the Hawkeye State, Ms. Fowler said. President Joe Biden didn’t even appear on the ballot in New Hampshire in 2024, she said, indicating the Democratic National Committee doesn’t want anything to do with New Hampshire anymore.

With the 2024 contest verging on irrelevance for the Republicans, Ms. Fowler said it might well take a shocking result to keep the New Hampshire primaries around. If President Trump wins, as most are expecting, it will be another nail in the coffin.

“People will say, ‘The polls told us there’s no contest here,” Ms. Fowler said. “’What do we need New Hampshire for?’”