Former President Donald Trump rang in a New Hampshire primary turnout record upon securing victory Tuesday, analysis of election data shows.
With Trump leading the GOP ballot, the surge in voting highlights his knack for motivating Americans to get involved in the election process.
Tuesday’s election turnout topped the previous record, set in the Democrat primary of 2020, by about 4,000 votes. The high water mark for the GOP primary, set in 2016, was also surpassed by 13,000 votes, according to the New York Times’ election data:
- 2024: More than 300,000 voters
- 2020: 296,000 voters
- 2016: 287,000 voters
Many of the voters who cast a ballot on Tuesday were not Republicans. According to CNN exit polling data, 70 percent of former Gov. Nikki Haley’s voters were not registered Republicans, a massive number for a candidate who claims to be a conservative.
Democrat political strategist Tom Bonier told the Times that Trump, a populist candidate, causes people to care more about elections, even small primaries in purple states.
“He’s picking right up where he left off in 2020, which saw the highest turnout in generations,” Bonier, a Democrat data clearinghouse specialist, told the Times. “New Hampshire was the first test of how that might have evolved, as an open primary and an opponent providing an outlet for anti-Trump voters to register their opposition. And it appears that, if anything, Trump is more polarizing than ever, mobilizing both supporters and opponents in potentially record-setting numbers.”
Some precincts had lines of voters wrapped around the blocks, the Times reported:
A line of 70 people stretched outside the polling location in Meredith when polls opened at 7 a.m. The town clerk, Kerri Parker, said she anticipated “record turnout” in this village nestled along the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee. By 5 p.m., 2,254 of the ward’s 5,109 registered voters had cast a ballot.
Similar lines were a constant in Bedford, a wealthy suburb of Manchester. Nearly 5,700 people had voted in the town by midafternoon, with a further 959 absentee ballots reported and many voters still in line. Bedford has 15,613 registered voters in all. “This is definitely a high turnout,” said Bill Carter, a town councilor. “More than we see in town and state elections.”
As a midday snow began to coat the parking lot of the Peterborough Community Center, near the southern border of the state, Linda Guyette, the local clerk, said that almost 2,000 of the town’s 5,100 registered voters had already cast a ballot.
Despite the high turnout, the Associated Press called the New Hampshire primary for Trump 27 minutes faster than it called the Iowa caucuses. As of Tuesday morning, Trump defeated Haley by double digits.
Haley spent $31 million in New Hampshire to place second, with plans to spend millions more in future primaries. In total, Republican presidential contenders spent over $167 million in losing efforts to defeat Trump in New Hampshire and Iowa.
Among Republicans, calls grew louder for Haley to drop out of the race following Trump’s victory. Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said Trump’s win locked up the Republican nomination.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former GOP War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
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