If you’ve lived in New Hampshire during a presidential election, it seems like it goes on for months and months—and it does! That’s because the people running for president need to run in not one election but two.

Why is New Hampshire so important to the presidential primary?

New Hampshire is important because it is the first state to hold its primary election at the beginning of each presidential campaign, which happens every four years. It’s the first test to see what voters think of all the candidates and who might be the best person to win the general election.

Before each New Hampshire primary election, there are usually lots of people running for president. But after the New Hampshire primary, the people who didn’t get very many votes start to drop out of the race. Those who stay in the race move onto the next state primary. Some of the people who don’t do well in that next state primary will drop out of the race and so on through each state primary. Eventually, each political party will end up with just one candidate who will become the nominee for that party.

The people of New Hampshire play an important role in the New Hampshire primary because it’s their votes that determine who wins the primary election. That’s what it means to live in a democracy ! The people decide who will run the government. And since New Hampshire has the first-in-the-nation primary, the voters in this state have a civic duty to vet the candidates carefully. The rest of the country is counting on Granite Staters to practice good citizenship and to make the right decision at the polls.

Why was the 1952 presidential primary important to New Hampshire?

The first time New Hampshire held what we think of as a modern presidential primary was in 1952. Before that, the men who led each political party chose who their party’s nominee would be without hearing much from the people. Instead of voting for who they wanted to be president, people voted for the men who would decide who would become president, which isn’t the same thing at all! Since people didn’t get to vote directly for their candidate, a lot of them didn’t vote at all.

But in 1952, the election was different. New Hampshire’s government changed the state law to allow people to vote directly for the person they wanted to be their party’s nominee. The state government made this change because they wanted to increase voter participation in the primary process. That change in the law made all the difference in how Granite Staters would see their role in electing presidents.

What happened in the 1952 election?

In the 1952 primary election , there were four main candidates: two for each of the major political parties (including the Democrats and the Republicans). There was a front-runner for each party, but these front-runners would be surprised when the votes were counted in the New Hampshire primary. A lot of other people were surprised by the votes too!

The president of the United States in 1952 was named Harry Truman, and he was a Democrat. Everyone thought he would run for a second term and be the Democratic Party’s nominee. He had competition, though, from a U.S. senator named Estes Kefauver.

Kefauver was from Tennessee, but he spent months in New Hampshire, meeting the people of the Granite State. He visited towns all over the state. He talked to people in local restaurants and at the grocery store—anywhere he could find groups of people together! People recognized him because he had a coonskin hat, which is made out of fur from a raccoon. Many times he traveled by sled because it was winter and there was a lot of snow on the ground. Sleds were sometimes easier to get around in than cars in those days!

The people of New Hampshire liked that Kefauver took the time to answer their questions and get to know them. Traveling around the state, meeting people, and talking with them became known as retail politics, which would become very important if a candidate wanted to win the New Hampshire primary.

President Truman did not visit New Hampshire at all during the primary campaign. In fact, he called it “the beauty pageant” and thought it was a waste of time. When primary election day came in New Hampshire, the people voted for Kefauver instead of President Truman!

After President Truman lost the New Hampshire primary, he changed his mind about running for president again and dropped out of the race.

The front-runner for the Republican Party was a U.S. senator from Ohio named Robert Taft. He campaigned some in New Hampshire, but a lot of people thought he would win the New Hampshire primary without having to work too hard. But then he was challenged in the primary for the Republican nomination.

Several well-known people in America wanted to see if they could convince General Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower to run for president of the United States. Ike was a famous American general who led U.S. armed forces in World War II about 10 years earlier. He was still in Europe with the American troops in 1952, helping Europe rebuild after the war ended. His friends all thought he would be a terrific president.

In New Hampshire, two important politicians named Sherman Adams and Hugh Gregg decided to campaign for Ike in the New Hampshire primary to see how he would do in a presidential race. Sherman Adams was governor of New Hampshire at the time, and Hugh Gregg would become governor of the state after him. They organized a whole campaign for Ike in the Granite State, even though Ike himself stayed in Europe and didn’t even visit New Hampshire once during the primary election.

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Biography

Sherman Adams

1899–1986

Caption:

Sherman Adams was the governor of New Hampshire during the 1952 primary. He was a friend of General Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower. He helped Ike win the New Hampshire primary that year on the Republican side. Then he traveled all over the country to help Ike win primaries in other states. After Ike became the president, Sherman Adams went to Washington, D.C. to work for him. Adams was the first “Chief of Staff” in the White House, which is the president’s top assistant. He organized all the people who worked for the president. What do you think that job was like?

Image Credit: New Hampshire Historical Society

Ike’s campaign held all sorts of events, like rallies and meetings, to explain why Ike would be a good president, and it worked! When the votes were counted after the primary election, Ike had won without ever setting a foot in New Hampshire. His victory convinced Ike to come back to America and run for president. When he was campaigning in the general election later that year, he came to New Hampshire and held several events. In November he won the presidency and became the 34th president of the United States.

What was the lasting impact of the 1952 primary?

With so much going on in New Hampshire in 1952, the national media paid a lot of attention to the primary that year and broadcast their reports to the entire country. People started to realize that what happened in the New Hampshire primary could change the presidential election for everyone in the United States.

Why are traditions important to the New Hampshire presidential primary?

Since 1952, a lot of traditions have grown up around the New Hampshire primary. Some of them started in 1952, and some of them started later. Some of them are fun and quirky, and some of them are important to preserving American democracy . All of them show the power of the individual voter in New Hampshire.

Retail politics is when candidates meet with voters in small groups at local events. The candidate tries to convince everyone to give them their votes by answering people’s questions and talking about their concerns. It is important that voters have a chance to ask these questions, listen to the candidates’ answers, and ask follow-up questions.

Candidates have to feel comfortable talking about a lot of different topics, which allows them to show how much they know about the lives of ordinary Americans. Do the candidates understand the problems Americans face in their everyday lives or the things average Americans are worried about?

Voters are also interested to see how candidates respond when a person doesn’t agree with them. Can the candidate try to understand someone else’s point of view? Does the candidate suggest a compromise or try to solve the disagreement? These are the types of things voters look at when deciding who to vote for.

What is unique about New Hampshire is how well retail politics work here. It works because New Hampshire is a small state with people who care about their civic duty. Candidates can easily travel around the state to talk to people. Sometimes the candidates go to local events, like festivals or fairs, to meet local voters.

Many of the candidates hold town hall meetings where they invite people to come to hear them speak and ask them questions. Many Granite Staters take the time to learn about the candidates at these types of events because they are civic-minded, which means they take their responsibility to become informed voters seriously.

New Hampshire voters are known across the country for being well-informed about the people running for president and the political issues that many Americans are worried about. That’s because many Granite Staters practice good citizenship by educating themselves about the candidates.

Voters in New Hampshire usually feel they have a responsibility to vet the candidates during the primary election . They want to make good choices for who should be president of the United States. Being a responsible, informed voter is an important example of civic engagement in the Granite State. For this same reason, voter participation, meaning the percentage of New Hampshire voters who actually cast a ballot in the primary election, is very high, usually around 80 percent.

Because the people of New Hampshire are open to listening to what the candidates have to say, they are also known for being independent-minded. That means that they think for themselves about who should be president and don’t always vote for who the leaders of political parties think they should vote for.

Many voters in New Hampshire are neither Democrats nor Republicans. Instead, they consider themselves independents who vote for whichever party’s candidate they like best. These kinds of voters are called “undeclared” because they haven’t declared themselves to be in either major political party. New Hampshire has more undeclared voters than most states.

Front-runners are often surprised when they come to New Hampshire that they have to convince Granite Staters to vote for them. But since the people in New Hampshire are willing to listen to all the candidates, voters sometimes choose to support someone who is not expected to do well in the presidential primary. These candidates are called underdogs because they are not expected to win.

In the history of the New Hampshire primary, voters have often supported the underdog over the front-runner, which surprises everyone! In fact, two presidents who thought they would win second terms as president changed their minds after doing poorly in the New Hampshire primary: President Harry Truman in 1952 and President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. New Hampshire’s primary can help someone who is a good candidate but not as popular get their ideas heard.

Another New Hampshire tradition that occurs in only a few, tiny New Hampshire towns is called midnight voting. People living in these towns are allowed to vote at the stroke of midnight at the beginning of primary day. They are the first voters in the state to cast their ballots. Once everyone in town votes, town officials close the polls and announce the results to the world. The results in these small towns give everyone a preview of how voters in New Hampshire might be feeling and the way the primary election may go in the Granite State.

Anyone can run for president in New Hampshire, even if they are not a serious candidates. A person can be in the New Hampshire primary if they pay $1,000 and submit the paperwork to the secretary of state’s office at the New Hampshire State House. With such an open primary, anyone could become president!

Lots of candidates run for president in the Granite State, and some of them have been unique characters. Sometimes people dress up in costumes, pretending to be either famous people, like Abraham Lincoln, or animals, like the Lobsterman. Many comedians have run for the presidency as well, such as Pat Paulson, who ran for president in the NH primary from 1968 to 1996. He had become famous in America for his appearances on a tv show called "The Smothers Brothers," and his presidential campaign used funny slogans like, "We can't stand Pat!"

Some of these colorful characters didn't formally file for the New Hampshire primary but just announced to the media that they were running. If people wanted to vote for them, then they needed to write in their names on the ballot. Others were official candidates.

They all provided some light-hearted fun during primary season and show how open to the New Hampshire primary is to anyone who wants to run for the presidency. Voters feel that if unique characters can run for president, so can they.

Will New Hampshire keep the first-in-the-nation presidential primary in the future?

Some officials from other states argue that New Hampshire should not always get to vote first in the presidential primary, in part because the state is so small. Can you understand why they think other states should have a turn being first? These officials have tried to move their states’ primary earlier than New Hampshire’s, but they were always stopped by New Hampshire’s Secretary of State Bill Gardner , who served in this office for more than 40 years.

Gardner argued that there are lots of reasons for New Hampshire to go first, including the state’s small size. Why do you think being a small state would be an advantage in a presidential primary? Can you think of other reasons why New Hampshire should keep its primary first out of all the states?

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Biography

Bill Gardner

1948–Present

Caption:

Bill Gardner became the New Hampshire secretary of state in 1976. He retired in 2022 and was the longest-serving secretary of state in American history. The secretary of state's job is to run all of the elections in New Hampshire. They also make sure that everyone follows the election laws. Gardner believed that the New Hampshire primary is a really important tradition. For almost 50 years, he picked the date for the New Hampshire primary. He always made sure it was the first one!

Image Credit: Courtesy of Allegra Boverman for New Hampshire Public Radio

When people talk about the first primary, they often mention both New Hampshire and Iowa. It’s true that every four years, Iowa holds a contest for presidential candidates in each party about a week before New Hampshire does. But Iowa’s contest isn’t really an election. Instead, they have something called a caucus.

A caucus is when groups of people get together from each political party and discuss which candidate should be their party’s nominee. Each person gets to vote within the caucus, but once the caucus settles on one candidate or another, individual votes don’t matter anymore.

No other state is as closely linked to presidential politics as New Hampshire is. Granite Staters are proud of their interest in presidential politics. Even when it is not a primary election season, many politicians come to the state to talk to its inhabitants and find out what their concerns are. They give speeches, hold town hall meetings, and attend local fairs and festivals. New Hampshire may be a small state, but it makes a big impact in presidential politics.

And how does all this history—the 1952 primary and the traditions that have grown up around the New Hampshire primary—show the importance of ordinary voters in the Granite State? How does even one vote make a difference?