The New Hampshire Rules

Candidates have never been drawn to New Hampshire by its delegate reward. It offers no more than 1 percent of each party's national total, which in turn, is divided among candidates to proportionally represent the primary vote. The state's already small Republican delegate total could be reduced by half in 2008 if the national party decides to punish any state that elects its delegates before Feb. 5. (New Hampshire Democrats have won a waiver from their national party to hold a primary in January.) Still, candidates come to New Hampshire because it has earned a reputation as a giant focus group—ready and willing to evaluate the candidates and recommend one or two in each party to the states that follow. Whether this will hold in 2008 remains to be seen.

But one thing is certain: New Hampshire jealously guards its first-in-the-nation presidential primary status, to the point that by the early fall of 2007 it had yet to schedule its 2008 presidential primary. the Democratic National Committee assigned it a date of Jan. 22, eight days after the Iowa caucuses. But when Michigan moved its primary to Jan. 15, the whole schedule was thrown into turmoil. It is quite possible that New Hampshire will end up voting just a few days after New Year's, although it is not out of the question that the Granite State's first-in-the-nation primary could take place sometime in December. (It ultimately landed on a Jan. 8 primary date.)

The New Hampshire primary is open to registered members of each party, plus independent voters, known in the Granite State as "undeclared." They automatically become members of the party in which they cast their primary ballot (although they can change back as they leave the polling place). As of November 2006, there were 850,836 registered voters in New Hampshire—256,353 Republicans, 221,549 Republicans, and 372,934 independents.