New Hampshire primary 2024: Trump projected to win, Haley vows to fight on

In most municipalities, polls don't close until 7 or 8 p.m. tonight, but the votes are already counted in one New Hampshire town: Dixville Notch, which by tradition casts, and counts, its votes at the stroke of midnight on primary day. The results? Haley 6 votes, Trump 0 votes.

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Voters in Dixville Notch cast first ballots at midnight in New Hampshire primary

All six voters in Dixville Notch cast their ballots for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the New Hampshire primary.

Haley called it a "great start" and may benefit from some fluffy media coverage today about how she won the hearts and votes of this very small town. But, of course, the results in Dixville Notch don't mean anything for who's going to win tonight. In incumbent-less Republican primaries since 1996, the winner of Dixville Notch and the winner of New Hampshire overall have only matched up two out of five times, counting a tie in 2012.

—Nathaniel Rakich, 538

Like Iowa (which held its Republican caucuses last week), New Hampshire's distinct character has been a selling point for its first-in-the-nation status. People in New Hampshire expect to meet their presidential candidates, the cliché goes, giving candidates a chance to show off their retail campaigning skills. But New Hampshire's unique character — its smaller towns, independent political streak and relatively homogenous demographics — have also been cited as a drawback. This raises a question: How nationalized are New Hampshire's politics? Are voters in the Granite State asking about issues of local concern, or about big national topics like abortion rights, Trump's indictments and foreign policy?

In some ways, New Hampshire seems to march to the beat of its own political drum. Measured by DW-NOMINATE scores, its all-Democratic congressional delegation is on the moderate side. Among the handful of other states that also have all Democrats representing them in Congress, most also have a Democratic governor — but New Hampshire has a Republican governor. And in 2016, on a night that was largely disappointing for Democrats, New Hampshire narrowly elected Democrat Maggie Hassan to the Senate, and Hillary Clinton won the state, despite the trends among rural white voters toward the GOP, which drove Clinton's losses in several other close states (Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan) — higher rates of college degrees may have had something to do with that.

Looking at past elections makes this even more interesting. Until 2016, New Hampshire had voted with the winner in nearly every presidential election since 1976. In the 1980s, Republican presidential candidates were strong there, but Bill Clinton won the state twice in the 1990s. Then it went for George W. Bush once — but Kerry in 2004 — then twice for Barack Obama.

It's possible that New Hampshire still goes its own way politically — but it's also possible that, as the Northeast becomes more Democratic (and the greater Boston area spills out into more of the state), New Hampshire is actually becoming less of a politically distinct place, and more like a typical place that's closely divided but pretty consistently blue (like Colorado).

—Julia Azari, 538 contributor

According to a January poll from the St. Anselm College Survey Center, Republican primary voters said they were less likely to vote for Trump in November than they are to vote for Haley. Twenty-one percent of GOP primary voters in New Hampshire said they would vote for Biden in a race between Trump and Biden. If the matchup were between Haley and Biden, just 10 percent said they would choose Biden.

—Mary Radcliffe, 538

Like most incumbent presidents, Biden appears to have avoided a serious threat to his renomination. His main opponents, Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson, are extremely unlikely to win the party's nod. However, unlike his recent predecessors (and his major 2024 opponents), Biden didn't file for the New Hampshire ballot because the state's primary date violates the Democratic National Committee's calendar rules for the 2024 cycle, which upset New Hampshire Democrats by threatening their state's long-held spot as the first-in-the-nation primary. Yet many Granite State Democrats are also working to help Biden win as a write-in candidate to avoid allowing one of his fledgling opponents to claim victory. And polls have found Biden comfortably leading the field despite his write-in status, although his support has ranged from about 50 percent to 70 percent.

This isn't an unprecedented situation: In the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson twice won as a write-in candidate. While New Hampshire's primary has included a presidential preference vote since 1952, the 1964 Democratic ballot didn't have any candidate names in the preference section — Johnson won 95 percent as a write-in. But in 1968, his less-convincing write-in performance had a much bigger impact and likely played a role in his exit from the race. Amid frustration over Johnson's handling of the Vietnam War, Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy challenged him in New Hampshire and, unlike Johnson, put his name on the primary ballot. Johnson fell just short of 50 percent and only won by about 8 points over McCarthy. In the days following the primary, New York Sen. Robert Kennedy jumped into the race, and Johnson soon surprised the country by announcing that he wouldn't seek renomination.

Phillips, who usually polls better than Williamson in New Hampshire, is a long-shot to actually defeat Biden, but McCarthy's 1968 showing looms large as an example of how a sizable vote share in defeat can still count for much. Other past examples of strong incumbent challengers also stand out. In March 1952, Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver did the unthinkable by actually defeating President Harry Truman outright in the Democratic primary, 55 percent to 44 percent, which led Truman to announce he wouldn't seek renomination. In February 1976, President Gerald Ford only outdistanced former California Gov. Ronald Reagan by little more than 1 point in New Hampshire and went on to barely edge out Reagan for the GOP nomination. In 1980 and 1992, incumbent presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush won their party primaries by 10 and 16 points, respectively, showcasing intraparty divisions that may have contributed to their reelection defeats in November.

—Geoffrey Skelley, 538