What to look for on New Hampshire Primary Night
Presidential election in New Hampshire, 2016
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 Date: November 8, 2016 |
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February 9, 2016
Mother nature laid out a white carpet for the 2016 presidential candidates in New Hampshire as snow fell on their final full day of campaigning before the Granite State’s notoriously unpredictable voters cast their ballots on Tuesday.
Voting starts after midnight Monday night in three tiny locales: Dixville Notch and Millsfield in the northern reaches of the state, and Hart’s Location in the White Mountain National Forest. They traditionally report their results shortly after polls close early on Tuesday morning, not long after they open. It’s not too hard to tally the votes in these places: In the 2012 Republican primary, 33 people total voted in these three places; and in the 2008 Democratic primary (the party’s last competitive nominating contest), 28 people voted.
More than 85 percent of the state’s precincts will close by 7:00 PM EST on Tuesday night (266 out of 300 precincts). Soon after that the television network computers will really start to crunch the numbers, combining real votes with data from their exit poll (a random sampling of voters as they leave dozens of precinct polling stations across the state throughout primary day) to project the outcome of the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries. The remainder of the state’s precincts will close by 8:00 PM.
If either one of the races is close, the networks may leave a little time to fold in actual results from these 8:00 PM poll-closing precincts, which includes those in Nashua, the second-largest vote-producing city in the state. In the largest, Manchester, where precincts close at 7:00 PM, the vote counting is relatively slow. Thus, if either primary contest is close, there probably won’t be a poll-closing call.
Inclement weather could affect the primary turnout, but traditionally, New Hampshire has the highest presidential primary participation rate of any state. New Hampshire Secretary of State William M. Gardner is predicting a turnout of 282,000 in the Republican primary and 268,000 in the Democratic primary.
Both parties saw record turnouts in their last competitive primary contest. Below are the figures for the turnout in each party’s primary in the last 10 presidential elections.
| Past New Hampshire primary turnouts | ||
|---|---|---|
| Year | Dem number of voters | GOP number of voters |
| 2012 | 59,872 | 248,574 |
| 2008 | 287,556 | 239,793 |
| 2004 | 219,787 | 67,624 |
| 2000 | 154,639 | 238,206 |
| 1996 | 91,562 | 208,938 |
| 1992 | 167,819 | 174,165 |
| 1988 | 123,512 | 157,644 |
| 1984 | 101,131 | 75,570 |
| 1980 | 111,930 | 147,157 |
| 1976 | 82,381 | 111,671 |
The most recent statewide registration figures as of February 5, 2016, for New Hampshire are as follows:
| Registration numbers | |
|---|---|
| Party | Registration numbers |
| Democratic: | 231,376 |
| Republican: | 262,111 |
| Undeclared: | 389,472 |
| Total: | 882,959 |
“Undeclared” voters are like Independents in other states. New Hampshire makes it very easy for undeclared voters to participate in the primary of either one of the party primaries. And after they cast their ballot, they can almost automatically reinstate their undeclared status. Many observers, like Andrew Smith who runs the University of New Hampshire poll, believe that a majority of undeclared voters generally lean towards one of the two parties and only three-to-six percent are genuine swing voters who switch back and forth between Republican and Democratic candidates. Smith suspects that Republican-leaning undeclared voters are a bit more likely to go to the polls on Tuesday to cast ballots in the GOP primary, than Democratic-leaning independents will be motivated to participate in the Democratic primary.
This scenario could affect both the Democratic and GOP primaries, but it’s less likely to impact the ultimate outcome of who wins. On the Democratic side, pre-primary polls indicate that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders fares better among undeclared voters against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton than he does among registered Democrats, although he leads Clinton among this group as well. But his overall lead in the polls appears to be so large, that a lower turnout of undeclared voters in the Democratic contest could reduce Sanders’ margin over Clinton, but is much less likely to reverse it.
On the Republican side, the undeclared vote is scattered among the candidates in the pre-primary polls, although billionaire Donald Trump receives a plurality—just as he leads the GOP field in the pre-primary polls overall. However, undeclared voters have demonstrated the ability to shift heavily towards one candidate on primary day, and if they did so again in the GOP contest this year, that could help fuel an upset.
When most of the primary returns from New Hampshire’s 237 municipalities start to roll in at 7:00 PM, they will provide important clues to which presidential candidates stay in the race and how they move on to subsequent primaries and caucuses.
One important question to look for answers to is how working-class voters in both parties are going to align themselves going forward. For Sanders, this is a critical issue. Since there’s little evidence so far in this race that Sanders is going to be peal off substantial numbers of African-American and Hispanic voters from Clinton’s base, doing well among working class Democrats is essential for him. Sanders isn’t going to be able to win the party’s nod with just overwhelming backing from younger voters. An additional challenge for Sanders is that these voters were the very ones who provided Clinton with a bulwark of support eight years ago in her long struggle with Barack Obama over the 2008 Democratic nomination.
Look at the returns from Berlin, an old paper mill town with a heavy French Canadian ethnic population in the North Country; Claremont, a former textile town; and Rochester, a long-ago center of shoe production; Franklin, an aging mill town that once produced woolen cloth, hosiery and hacksaws and has struggled with revitalization; for signs of that Sanders’ progressive economic message is gaining traction among working class Democrats. 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. They also have relatively low numbers of adults with four-year college degrees. And Clinton carried all three of towns with ease against Obama. If Sanders wins these three towns, or substantially cuts down Clinton’s margins from the 2008 primary, it will be a sign that his campaign is growing.
At the same time, how working class voters in these towns cast their Republican primary ballots will indicate the strength of Trump’s candidacy. These are all towns where former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who handily won the 2012 GOP presidential primary, under-performed his statewide 39 percent mark. These are not places with a preponderance of establishment GOP voters who might be partial to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio or former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Winning New Hampshire working-class voters is critical for Trump. The television networks’ surveys of Republican Iowa caucus-goers found that Trump did best with those who only had a high school education or a two-year college degree.
The biggest prize for any of the White House hopefuls, in either party, is Manchester, the city that produced the most voters in the 2012 GOP and the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries. It has a working-class tilt, but as the state’s largest city, it’s more diverse than the towns previously mentioned. And, as in most places in the state, a plurality of its voters are registered “undeclared” and that always adds a bit of unpredictability in the Granite State’s returns. Obama carried Manchester in 2008, and Romney won it in 2012, albeit with only 32 percent of the Republican primary vote.
New Hampshire’s upscale communities are also critical to both parties’ presidential contenders. Bedford, a comfortable suburban town near Manchester with a Whole Foods Market due to open this Spring has the highest median household income in New Hampshire, almost double the state average. More that half of its adult residents has at least a four-year college degree. This is ground zero for the four Republicans who are competing to become the favorite of the party establishment: Bush, Rubio, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. All four have campaigned in Bedford (but not Trump). Romney won 49 percent of the vote in Bedford in the 2012 GOP primary and the town boasts one of the highest levels of registered Republican voters in the state, roughly 47 percent.
The outcome of the Republicans’ battle for Bedford could tell us a lot about the course of the GOP contest. If Bush, Christie, Kasich or Rubio is able to post a solid plurality victory in Bedford, that could indicate that one of these four is able to consolidate the establishment vote. But if Bedford’s returns are more or less split among these four candidates, it will be evidence that the Republican establishment vote is having trouble coalescing behind a single candidate which helps Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who won the Iowa caucuses but is not expected to contend for the top spot in New Hampshire.
This and similar story lines will play across New Hampshire between the establishment GOP candidates in a number of well-off bedroom communities including; Amherst, Windham, Hampton Falls, Brookline and Stratham. Merrimack and Londonderry, which have a median household income less than $100,000, but above $90,000, are larger and produce more votes. They are huge prizes in the GOP race.
But these wealthier towns could also play an important role in the Democratic contest. They were all places that in 2008 Clinton and Obama both ran relatively well in. Clinton carried Bedford over Obama, 40.2 percent to 39.8 percent. She also won Windham, Londonderry and Merrimack. But Obama carried, Amherst, Stratham, Brookline and Hampton Falls. These are well-off and well-educated voters who are also generally liberal on social issues. They are an important part of the Democrats’ so-called coalition of the ascendant. It will be interesting to see if Sanders—with his promise to raise taxes on the wealthy—is able to be as competitive in these places as Obama was. They were a key part of Obama’s winning coalition in the 2008 Democratic nominating contest.
James A. Barnes is a senior writer for Ballotpedia and co-author of the 2016 edition of the Almanac of American Politics. He is a member of the CNN Decision Desk and will be helping to project the Democratic and Republican winners in New Hampshire.
See also
- 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
