CHANGING POPULATION DEMOGRAPHICS
IN NEW HAMPSHIRE AND THEIR IMPACT
ON THE STATE'S PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY

The importance of the early New Hampshire presidential primary has taken on a peculiarity for which it
stands reassessment given current population changes in the state. Long looked to as a test for winnowing
out candidacies because of the small population and size of the state, recent trends have begun to
significantly alter the nature of the state. The most important of these is the growth of the city of Nashua
on the Massachusetts border in recent times. What it comes down to is that the state in a very real sense is
becoming a virtual 'suburb' of Massachusetts, as that states numbers and 'culture' inundate it.

Nashua is but a short driving distance from Boston, and it is increasingly taking on the character of an
almost bedroom suburb of that metropolis. This is also true in terms of media significance in southern
New Hampshire especially. Nashua will soon be the largest city in the state. And given such changes, both
parties may do well to take under advisement the power they leave in that state's electorate's hands in the
selection process of their presidential candidates. Not dissimilar alterations of voting demographics in
Iowa, the other 'earliest' bellweather measure of candidates makes it another prime object of
reconsideration.

Candidates who do well in these contests emerge with a leg-up on their opponents -- in fund raising
prospects, in media evaluation, in recognition, and so on. A general rule has developed that if a candidate
does not win in New Hampshire, he is not going to take the nomination, in part because he is perceived as
not being able to win the election. Rare exceptions to that have occured when a candidate such as Muskie,
Dukakis, Kennedy, or Tsongas are virtual 'favorite sons' in the state because they hail from the
neighborhood. But even then, the popular interpretation given to results is that the candidate that wins in
New Hampshire (or does so much better than had been anticipated there), will get the nomination of their
party. A popular rendition also has it that a candidate that does not carry his party's primary in New
Hampshire cannot win in November, even if he got the nomination.

This has served to exaggerate the importance of the state's primary and the small population. That is
advantageous in some ways to the state, but there is little reason to hold that the population of the
Democrat or Republican voters in the primary could be supposed to be any sort of microcosm of the larger
voting populations of either party. Indeed, to whatever degree they might be in variance from that larger
universe, the importance of the primary may have dilatory impact on the electoral chances of the
candidates of the parties, whose selection rests in great measure on their success among this set of voters.

In certain respects, the Massachusetts voters who are inundating at least southern New Hampshire may
come from an electoral perspective quite out of the center of American politics, and their impact on the
primary may lead to a more 'liberal' cast of characters -- and issues -- in American politics from both sides
of the aisle. Given the lack of enthusiasm for such liberalism among voters for Presidential candidates of
either party, it might be that candidates which depend so heavily on success in New Hampshire will be
less suited to enthuse the electorate in the general election campaigns that follow.

The demographic changes are probably one of the primary reasons that the Democrats have been doing
better in New Hampshire of late, at least in terms of presidential votes, compared to previous years.
During most of this century, New Hampshire has almost always voted Republican. In the post wap era, the
only Democrat to carry the state had been LBJ in the 1964 anomaly until 1992. While it is true that Perot's
impact in both of those races was to diminish the Republican vote for President, the somewhat higher
vote won by Clinton probably reflects this emerging liberal voting migration.

NEW HAMPSHIRE PRESIDENTIAL VOTE
POST WAR ERA

YEAR REPUBLICAN DEMOCRAT SIGNIFICANT OTHER

1948 121299 107995
1952 166287 106663
1956 176519 90364
1960 157989 137772
1964 104029 182065
1968 154903 130589 11173 (Wallace)
1972 213724 116435
1976 185835 147645
1980 221705 108864 49693 (Anderson)
1984 267051 120377
1988 281537 163696
1992 202484 209040 121337 (Perot)
1996 196486 246166 48387 (Perot)

1948 53% 47%
1952 61 39
1956 66 34
1960 54 46
1964 36 64
1968 (3 candidate) 52 44 2
1968 (2 candidate) 54 46
1972 65 35
1976 56 44
1980 58 39 3
1984 69 31
1988 63 37
1992 38 39 23
1996 40 50 10

These numbers clearly show the impact that Perot had on the races in 1992 and 1996 -- they also show the
growing Democrat voting strength over the last three elections in New Hampshire. What they indicate is a
core Republican vote which has changed little over the past 25 years, while the core Democrat vote has
basically doubled. That growth is even exhibited when the Republican candidates rolled up huge victories
in 1984 and 1988. How much of this can be attributed to the population growth in the southern part of the
state can be seen in looking at both returns and population on the county level. The two counties with the
heaviest growth, Rockingham and Hillsborough -- each with 20000 jumps, are in the southeast corner of
the state, nearest to Boston.

NEW HAMPSHIRE COUNTY POPULATION CHANGE

COUNTY 1996 est 1990

Belknap 51466 49216
Carroll 38240 35410
Cheshire 71531 70121
Coos 33531 34828
Grafton 78329 74929
Hillsborough 354196 335838
Merrimack 125085 120240
Rockingham 262893 245845
Stratford 107344 104233
Sullivan 39856 38592

State Total 1162461

The ideological orientation of the electorate in New Hampshire has begun to shift decidedly toward the
left with these population changes. New Hampshire Democrat voting has grown at alarming rates. The
impact of these changes will no doubt lead to the election of more Democrats to office in the state, at least
over the short term. In the longer run, it may lead to a marked switching of more conservative voters who
may have been Democrats in the past to the Republican side of the aisle. Over a very long period, some of
the voting in support of liberalism may be left behind by former Commonwealth migrants as they adjust to
the new enviorons and perhaps see the impact of the altered political landscape.

One concern the parties should consider is the impact of these population changes on the results of the
Presidential primary in the state. The more liberal voting population may mean a tendency to support
more liberal candidates in those primaries. For Democrats, that could mean a greater liklihood of more
liberal candidates faring well in the New Hampshire horserace, and having an enhanced chance to win the
party's nomination. But, given the shifting realities of American politics, this could be a death blow to
their candidacies in the general elections. Democrats have had enough difficulty winning the Presidency,
and such developments might make it more difficult for them to do it in the future. The recent Democrat
Presidents have all had extraneous factors which contributed to their electoral success. For Johnson, it was
the Kennedy assassination. For Carter, it was Watergate. And without Perot, Clinton would never have
been able to win. Even Truman and Kennedy were able to win due to third party complications. (See in
earlier issues of eJPS: Pollstergeist, A Reasonable Doubt, etc). And Clinton has managed somehow to
maintain an illusion of not being a liberal through his rhetorical Presidency, quite at odds with political
reality -- although it was an image he has benefited from; a good case in point of the argument here.

Republicans may also face a similar dilemna. If the changes in the demographics of New Hampshire mean
that more liberal Republicans are more likely to do better in the race for the nomination, a number of
scenarios could develop. The party could fragment as more conservative members balk at the result the
change could effect in party nominees and policy pursuits. A Republican party which nominates more
liberal candidates is going to have a harder time winning elections, also. Many Republican analysts are
convinced that GOP 'moderates' have a harder time polling victory, despite the opinions often conveyed by
the mainstream media to the contrary. Thus, Governor Whitman only narrowly sustained re-election in
New Jersey, for example. There is even some opinion that the lack of a hard conservative basis has driven
many potential Republican voters from the political arena altogether, and the potential impact of the
changes in New Hampshire could compound that problem.

The two possible development might seem to balance each other out, but both directions are ones which
neither party would be well advised to permit without some deliberation. Undoubtedly, it is the Democrats
who will have the most to loose from these developments. They will tend to make the party's nominees
more liberal and less amenable to the greater voting population across the country. Moderate and
conservative Democrats, already greatly read out of the party by recent electoral trends and interparty
power machinations and purges, will find less of a welcome in the Democrat apparatus. The party will
find itself less able to win the White House than it has been over the last fifty years. It has already suffered
electorally from a dominance by and over identification with the liberal left, and the impact of a greater
identification with it will make it more difficult for other candidates, even far from New Hampshire or the
Presidency, to attain competitiveness.

In the final analysis, it may well be that the New Hampshire Presidential Primary may have outgrown its
usefulness and overstayed its welcome. It is probably time to put some eggs in other baskets for the
practical political reasons mentioned here. Putting so much power in the hands of such a small sampling
may never have been a good idea. It developed more or less of its own energy, but it has become
something quite different than it was in previous periods.

Some of the benefits of the small scale involved in the early primary that have marked New Hampshire
could be maintained by coupling it with primaries in other small settings with electoral demographics
which could compensate for the potentially dilatory impact of the population change in the state.
Republicans might consider linking the New Hampshire contest to one in, for example, South Carolina.
A possible linkage for Democrats might involve more emphasis on Iowa, with some changes needed in
that state's caucus system probably warranted. Holding a trio of contests simultaneously in New
Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina might work to hold onto the small scale positives of the present
arrangement, while potentially offsetting some of the alterations which may grow out of the changes in
New Hampshire's 'virtual annexation' by Massachusetts.

Such changes in the primary process have become common fare in political years. We have seen the
evolution of the primary replace 'smoke filled rooms,' and we have witnessed the development of the
Super Tuesday Southern Primaries Event as examples. There is nothing sacrosanct about the position New
Hampshire has come to hold in the formula of the Presidential sweepstakes. Whatever alterations of the
Presidential nominee selection process are forthcoming, the party leadership on both sides of the aisle
would be well advised to at least consider the challenges posed by the changes taking place in southern
New Hampshire.

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CHANGING POPULATION DEMOGRAPHICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE STATE'S PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY