Why the New Hampshire Primary Is so Important

Why the New Hampshire Primary Is so Important Soon after Hillary Clinton announced to the world Im running for president  in the 2016 election, her  campaign made it clear what her next steps would be: She would travel to New Hampshire, where she won in 2008, well ahead of the primaries there to make her case directly to voters. So whats the big deal about New Hampshire, a state that offers up only four electoral votes in the presidential election? Why does everyone - the candidates, the media, the American public - pay so much attention to The Granite State? Here are four reasons why the New Hampshire primaries are so important. The New Hampshire Primaries Are First New Hampshire holds its primaries before anyone else. The state protects its status as first in the nation by maintaining a law that allows New Hampshires top elections official to move the date earlier if another state tries to pre-empt its primary. The parties, too, can punish states that try to move their primaries before New Hampshires. So the state is  a proving ground for campaigns. The winners capture some early, and important, momentum in the race for their partys presidential nomination. They become instant frontrunners, in other words. The losers are forced to re-evaluate their campaigns. New Hampshire Can Make or Break a Candidate Candidates who dont do well in New Hampshire are forced to take a hard look at their campaigns. As President John F. Kennedy famously said,  If they dont love you in March, April and May, they wont love you in November.   Some candidates quit after the New Hampshire primary, as President Lyndon Johnson did in 1968 after winning only a narrow victory against U.S.  Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota. The sitting president came within just 230 votes of losing the New Hampshire primary - an unprecedented failure - in what Walter Cronkite called a major setback. For others, a win in the New Hampshire primary cements the path to the White House. In 1952, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower won after his friends got him on the ballot. Eisenhower went on to win the White House against  Democrat Estes Kefauver that year. The World Watches New Hampshire Presidential politics has become a spectator sport in the United States. Americans love a horse race, and thats what the media serve up: Endless public-opinion polls and interviews with voters in the run-up to Election Day. The New Hampshire primary is to political junkies what Opening Day is to Major League baseball fans. That is to say: Its a really big deal.   The Media Watch New Hampshire The first primary of the presidential election season used to allow the television networks a trial run at reporting results. The networks compete to be first to call the race. In  Martin Plissners book The Control Room: How Television Calls the Shots in Presidential Elections,  the February 1964 New Hampshire primary was described as a  media  circus and, therefore, the center of the political worlds  attention.   Over a thousand correspondents, producers, technicians and support people of all kinds descended on New Hampshire, its voters and its merchants to confer the special franchise they have ever since enjoyed ... Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, New Hampshire was the first test in every cycle of the networks speed in declaring winners of elections. While networks continue to compete against each other to be first to call the race, they are overshadowed by digital media in reporting the results first. The emergence of online news sites has only served to add to the carnival-like atmosphere of news coverage in the state.