New Hampshire staying at head of primary line
CONCORD, N.H. - New Hampshire on Wednesday set its earliest-ever presidential primary, deciding on Jan. 8 and claiming its traditional spot as the nation’s first in a nomination season pushed almost to New Year’s Day of the election year.
The decision ends months of speculation, including the possibility that New Hampshire might move its primary to December to keep its spot at the head of the line. Iowa, which chooses delegates with a caucus system, begins five days earlier, Jan. 3.
New Hampshire primaries often have shaped presidential contests for nearly a century. Next year’s early date, fewer than seven weeks away, resulted from states around the country scheduling their own early primaries and caucuses to attract candidates before the major-party nominees are chosen. As a result, the Democratic and Republican nominees are likely to be effectively known by Feb. 5, when 22 states vote, if not earlier.
Secretary of State Bill Gardner set New Hampshire’s date hours after Michigan’s Supreme Court said that state’s primary could go forward as scheduled Jan. 15, ending a court battle. New Hampshire waited to make sure Michigan wouldn’t schedule voting even earlier.
Iowa’s caucuses have led the schedule for several decades, but New Hampshire has had the initial primary for much longer.
“This tradition has served our nation well, as decades of candidates and presidents have said,” Gardner said.
By letting New Hampshire follow Iowa, Gardner left intact the traditional one-two punch that the two states wield in presidential politics.
On the Democratic side, keeping Iowa first is good news for Barack Obama and John Edwards, who are in a virtual tie with Hillary Rodham Clinton in the state but trail her in New Hampshire and elsewhere. Republican Mike Huckabee, who is inching up on Mitt Romney, is also counting on a strong showing in Iowa to catapult him into contention in other states where he trails.
New Hampshire stands to lose half of its delegates to the Republican convention, reducing the number to 12, because it moved earlier than party rules allow. But state officials consider it a small price to pay for the attention New Hampshire gets from its leadoff spot. Democratic rules allow New Hampshire to hold an early primary, so the state will keep all of its 30 delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
Earlier Wednesday in Michigan, the state Supreme Court allowed both the Democrats and Republicans to hold their primary Jan. 15. The court’s 4-3 decision overturned lower-court rulings that said the law setting up the primary was unconstitutional because it would let the state political parties keep track of voters’ names and whether they took Democratic or GOP primary ballots but withhold that information from the public.