Global General

Special

Newsmaker

Asia Pacific

America

Middle East

Europe

Africa

Brief intro to New Hampshire presidential primary

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-17 10:47

WASHINGTON -- A total of six Democrats and seven Republicans will start the second bout of competition for the 2008 presidential race as New Hampshire primary is scheduled to start next Tuesday.

The following is a brief introduction to the New Hampshire primary, which is regarded as a turning point for the competitors' path to the White House.

Since the Iowa caucuses resulted in a three-way battle for Democratic candidates and an open-ended game for the Republican, New Hampshire, the U.S. state which is scheduled to host the first presidential primary, becomes a must-win place for those who either seek widened leads or fight for survival.

The New Hampshire presidential primary started in the 1910s with a reform act of the state legislature to select delegates for the national party conventions.

The New Hampshire state legislature passed a law in 1977, ruling that its primary must be the first in the country, seven days before any other "similar contest."

Originally held in early March, its date has been moved up for several times to maintain the state's political status in the presidential election driven by other states' attempt to grab the earliest primary.

Different from the Iowa caucuses that gauge support for presidential candidates through local meetings of party members, New Hampshire primary gauges support through statewide direct voting to determine which candidates will receive a state's votes for the Republican and Democratic nominations at the two parties' national conventions respectively scheduled later in the year. The event is run by the State of New Hampshire instead of the state party committees.

On the voting day, independent voters can register and vote in either party primary, but people registered as Republican or Democrat cannot cast ballots in the primary of the other party.

Partly because the primary is open to undeclared voters, the event usually draws a large turnout.

The Department of State statistics showed that in 2000, 85 percent of registered Republicans and 74 percent of registered Democrats went to the polls in the state, some 50 percent higher than the country's average turnout.

In 1992, Bill Clinton, although just ranking the second in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, won the party's nomination and the presidential election against then President George H. W. Bush, becoming the first one who did not win the New Hampshire primary but turned out to be the final winner since 1952.

The second primary "loser" but the final winner in the race was George W. Bush. He lost the Republican primary in 2000, but later defeated John McCain in the party's nomination and won the presidential election against former Vice President Al Gore.