New Hampshire Primary

THE NEW HAMPSHIRE Primary has, since the 1950s, become a key early test for candidates seeking their party's presidential nomination. The “first in the nation” [Page 444]status of the event has attracted media coverage and given victorious candidates momentum as they head into Super Tuesday and subsequent primaries and caucuses. In 1913, the general court (state legislature) voted to create a primary for the purpose of selecting delegates to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Up to that time, delegates had been selected through town caucuses, which would send delegates to state conventions that would select delegates to the national conventions. The 1913 law allowed candidates for delegate to be listed on a statewide ballot. Candidates could pledge to support specific candidates or could appear on the ballot as “uncommitted” delegates. Primaries were to be held on the same day as the town meeting day, the second Tuesday in March.

When the first primary was held in 1916 (the Democratic primary was won by President Woodrow Wilson's delegates, who were unopposed, and the Republican Primary was won by a slate of uncommitted delegates), Indiana had already held its primary, and Minnesota held its primary on the same day as New Hampshire. In 1920, Indiana moved its primary election to May, and Minnesota discontinued their primary, which established New Hampshire's as the first in the nation.

In 1920, delegates supporting General Leonard Wood (the former chief of staff of the Army and a New Hampshire native) won the primary, but were not nominated (the Republicans nominated Warren G. Harding), and in 1924, President Calvin Coolidge's delegates won the primary without opposition. For the next 20 years, slates of unpledged delegates won the state's primary elections. By the 1940s, interest in the primary had declined; voter turnout was eight percent in 1944 and 27 percent in 1948, despite a vigorous Republican Primary where delegates supporting former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen defeated a slate pledged to New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey (who would win the nomination).

In 1949, in order to encourage more voters to come to the polls, voters were allowed to state their preferences for presidential and vice presidential candidates. Candidates would be placed on the ballot if petitions containing the signatures of 50 voters from each of the state's two congressional districts were submitted on their behalf. The candidate's name would be placed on the ballot, unless they asked to have it withdrawn. As the votes would have no bearing on delegate selection, the primary was described as a “beauty contest.” Delegates would continue to be elected apart from this beauty contest, but would now have to be approved by the candidate to whom they were pledged. The law also allowed for candidates for delegate to seek election as a “favorable” delegate, which would not require the candidate's approval.

In the first beauty contest held in 1952, Dwight Eisenhower defeated Robert Taft in the Republican Primary, and Estes Kefauver defeated President Harry Truman, causing Truman to withdraw from the race. In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson decided not to seek re-election after defeating anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy, 49 to 42 percent.

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