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Trump's New Hampshire triumph
Presidential election in New Hampshire, 2016 and Sanders sweeps New Hampshire
 Date: November 8, 2016 |
Winner: Donald Trump (R) Hillary Clinton (D) • Jill Stein (G) • Gary Johnson (L) • Vice presidential candidates |
Important dates • Nominating process • Ballotpedia's 2016 Battleground Poll • Polls • Debates • Presidential election by state • Ratings and scorecards |
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This article covering the 2016 presidential election was written outside the scope of Ballotpedia's encyclopedic coverage and does not fall under our neutrality policy or style guidelines. It is preserved as it was originally written. For our encyclopedic coverage of the 2016 election, click here.
February 10, 2016
James A. Barnes is a member of the CNN Decision Desk, and he helped to project the Democratic and Republican winners in New Hampshire.
The billionaire celebrity trumped the Republican establishment in New Hampshire. After a disappointing second-place finish eight days prior in the Iowa GOP caucuses where he underperformed his ratings in the pre-caucus polls, developer and reality TV star Donald Trump stormed back in the snows of the Granite State to capture the first-in-the-nation presidential primary and further scramble the 2016 Republican presidential nominating contest.
Trump’s hefty 20-point margin of victory over runner-up Ohio Gov. John Kasich was such that he ran well among almost every segment of the New Hampshire GOP primary electorate. According to the television network exit poll, a random sampling of voters as they left the voting booths, about the only category of Republican voters Trump didn’t carry were those who said they were opposed to “temporarily banning Muslims who are not U.S. citizens from entering the U.S.,” one of his signature issues. But only about a third of the New Hampshire GOP primary-goers opposed that policy option and Kasich won a small plurality (26 percent) of those voters. Nearly two-thirds agreed with that position and Trump captured 45 percent of those voters.
| New Hampshire Republican Primary, 2016 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes | Delegates | |
 Donald Trump |
35.6% | 100,735 | 11 | |
| John Kasich | 15.9% | 44,932 | 4 | |
| Ted Cruz | 11.7% | 33,244 | 3 | |
| Jeb Bush | 11.1% | 31,341 | 3 | |
| Marco Rubio | 10.6% | 30,071 | 1 | |
| Chris Christie | 7.4% | 21,089 | 0 | |
| Carly Fiorina | 4.2% | 11,774 | 0 | |
| Ben Carson | 2.3% | 6,527 | 0 | |
| Rand Paul* | 0.7% | 1,930 | 0 | |
| Total Write-ins | 0.5% | 1,398 | 0 | |
| Jim Gilmore | 0% | 134 | 0 | |
| Totals | 283,175 | 22 | ||
| Source: New Hampshire Secretary of State | ||||
*Rand Paul dropped out of the race on February 3, 2016, but his name remained on the ballot in New Hampshire.[1]
While Trump’s support cut across demographic lines, his strongest reservoir of support came from working class voters. According to the exit poll, Trump won 40 percent of those GOP primary voters whose family income last year was between $30,000 and $49,999, the income segment that he performed best with. Among those who had a family income of less than $30,000, he won 39 percent of the vote. Among Republican primary voters who had family incomes of $100,000 or more, he captured 32 percent.
This working class phenomenon for Trump can also be seen in the actual returns from New Hampshire’s municipalities. It’s useful to remember that Trump’s victory in the Granite State was sweeping: Based on complete but unofficial returns, Trump carried 223 of the state’s 237 cities and towns. Kasich captured 13, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won one—tiny Millsfield where a total of 18 votes were cast.
But if you look at the average vote that Trump won in working class towns which have a relatively low household income, and compare those to the wealthy bedroom communities in the state, you can see some telling distinctions. In the top 25 wealthiest towns in New Hampshire based on their median household income, Trump’s average vote in those places was 30.7 percent. In the bottom 25 downscale towns (excluding the tiny burgs of Ellsworth, Millsfield and Wentworth’s Location, the latter two where the polls famously open after midnight on Monday), Trump’s average vote was 39.8 percent. For second-place finisher Kasich, his average vote in the top 25 was 18.8 percent; and in the bottom 25, it was 14.2 percent.
Consider the returns from three classic working class towns in the state: Berlin, an old paper mill town with a large French Canadian ethnic population; Claremont, a former textile town; and Franklin, an aging mill town that once produced woolen cloth, hosiery and hacksaws and has struggled with revitalization. Trump won Berlin with 41 percent of the vote. He carried Claremont with 39 percent. And he captured Franklin with 42 percent. All of these towns had median household incomes that are well below the New Hampshire average of $65,985 reported in the 2010-2014 American Community Survey conducted by the Census Bureau. All three also have populations in which less one-in-five adults have at least a four-year college degree. The statewide average is 34 percent.
In these three towns the four main Republican establishment candidates on the New Hampshire primary ballot—Kasich, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who’s since suspended his campaign—combined just matched Trump’s totals. In Berlin they collectively captured 42 percent of the vote; in Claremont, 42 percent; and in Franklin, 38 percent.
But in the wealthy towns, the GOP “establishment vote” easily outpaced Trump’s tallies. In Bedford, where the median household income was $123,423 in the latest Census Bureau American Community Survey, the highest in the state, Trump was victorious, but he only captured 28 percent of the vote. The four establishment candidates together won 57 percent, almost double. In Amherst, where the median household income is more than $115,000 and two-thirds of the adults have at least a four-year college degree, Trump again carried the town, but with only 26 percent of the vote. The four establishment candidates won 56 percent.
Now that Christie has departed the race, it gives a bit better opportunity for one of the remaining establishment hopefuls—Bush, Kasich or Rubio—to consolidate upper income and better-educated GOP voters and challenge Trump. But the GOP’s working class voters in New Hampshire were heard loud and clear on Tuesday night, when they gave their shout-out to the billionaire Trump.
For election and demographic information by town, please click on the below map.
| Color Key |
|---|
| Winning candidate |
| Donald Trump |
| John Kasich |
| Ted Cruz |
James A. Barnes is a senior writer for Ballotpedia and co-author of the 2016 edition of the Almanac of American Politics. He has conducted elite opinion surveys for National Journal, CNN and the on-line polling firm, YouGov.
See also
- Sanders sweeps New Hampshire
- Presidential election in New Hampshire, 2016
- Presidential Nominating Index: Clinton rules, but Sanders also rising
- Presidential Nominating Index: GOP elites tilt to Trump
- Presidential candidates, 2016
- Presidential debates (2015-2016)
- Presidential election, 2016/Polls
- 2016 presidential candidate ratings and scorecards
- Presidential election, 2016/Straw polls
