2008 New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary

New Hampshire hosts the first primary in the entire nation. A state law that was passed in 1975 required that the date be set at least one week before any other similar contest. The Iowa caucuses are the only delegate-choosing event before the New Hampshire primary, but since Iowa hosts caucuses, not primaries, that is not seen as violating the law. Both the First Congressional District and Second Congressional District are allocated 7 district delegates each. These delegates independently represent each Congressional District; they are not affected by the results of the entire state. ==Pre-primary polling, predictions, and events==

Five days before the New Hampshire primary, candidates competed at caucuses in Iowa. Barack Obama hoped that he would win these primaries the same way he defeated Hillary Clinton at the Iowa caucuses. Since his victory, he had attracted several supporters, which increased his chances at winning this primary. Likewise, Clinton was struggling to overcome setbacks after she came in third place at the caucuses in Iowa. A series of pre-primary polls showed that Obama enjoyed a significant lead. Clinton was coming second, and John Edwards third. On the other hand, a USA Today/Gallup poll indicated that Barack Obama enjoyed a 13-point lead over Hillary Clinton three weeks after they were tied in the pre-primary polls at New Hampshire. Even back in December 2007, Clinton was leading in the polls with 47%, and Obama had 26%. Clinton's aides responded to this by saying that she has the money to continue a national campaign. Former President Bill Clinton's campaign failed in the first five state primaries and caucuses when he ran in 1992. Despite these circumstances, Bill Clinton not only won the Democratic nomination, but he won the election. A US Census in 2006 reported that the population of New Hampshire was 1,314,895. 356,897 did not declare a party affiliation. 216,005 people have registered as a Democrat. These statistics are important because in 2004, the New Hampshire independents leaned towards the Democratic side in favor of then-candidate John Kerry. Since then, New Hampshire has become more Democratic, replacing their Republican governor and state legislature with a government led by Democratic politicians. However, the people of New Hampshire are divided into several smaller regions, so the entire state as a whole wouldn't have been expected to act in a uniform manner. New Hampshire campaign office hostage-taking On November 30, 2007, a man identified as 47-year old Leeland Eisenberg, armed with road flares strapped to his chest which he claimed were a bomb, entered a Clinton presidential campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire. He took hostage the five people in it, and asked for Clinton, believing she could assist him in gaining psychiatric help. Two hostages were released early on, a woman and her infant. Other hostages were released sporadically. The standoff ended with Eisenberg's surrender about five hours after the incident began. At the time of the event, Clinton was in the Washington D.C. area, scheduled to speak at a Democratic National Committee meeting in Vienna, Virginia; she canceled her appearances at public events for the remainder of the day. That evening she flew to Rochester in order to meet with and comfort the hostages, praise the law enforcement officials who handled the situation, ==Results==

Hillary Clinton led Barack Obama by 20 points in pre-primary polls in New Hampshire prior to the Iowa caucuses, but had fallen behind Obama by 13 points in the week prior to the New Hampshire primary. A turnout of nearly 288,000 people was even higher than expected, and was greater than the number of New Hampshire residents who voted for Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. Bill Richardson withdrew from the race after placing 4th in both the New Hampshire primary with less than 5 percent of the vote and the Iowa caucuses with less than 2 percent of the vote. He made this decision as he returned to his home state, New Mexico, on January 9, 2008, to meet with his top advisors. ==Recount==

Most New Hampshire voters cast their votes on Diebold optical-scan systems, which are vulnerable to tampering, leading election-reform activists to immediately begin examining the results from New Hampshire, claiming later to find evidence suggesting fraud. The story initially was reported only online, but was later acknowledged by mainstream news outlets. Most observers have concluded that demographic trends influence both a community's means of counting ballots, and which candidates the community is likely to support. Kucinich noted the difference between pre-primary polls which showed that Obama would win, and Clinton's win in the actual election. In addition, Kucinich cited reports circulating throughout the internet that alleged disparities around the state between hand-counted ballots, which tended to favor Obama, and machine-counted ones, which seemed to favor Clinton. but in an interview with Fox News, Kucinich said "he requested the recount out of concern for the integrity of the process and not out of loyalty to any one candidate." New Hampshire has not conducted a statewide recount in a presidential primary since the 1980 primary. The recount began on January 16, 2008 after New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner received $27,000 from Kucinich. The first ballots to be counted came from Manchester. The campaigns and fair elections groups had the right to see and approve every ballot. Kucinich was able to stop the recount at any time and receive a refund for the balance of the costs of the recount, since a recount in the entire state would require $70,000. In some of the towns and wards, the vote counts were identical. Vote count changes were made in places where voters did not follow directions and marked ballots that were impossible for the machines to read. The largest example of vote miscounting was Ward 5 in Manchester, where votes for the top candidates dropped significantly after the recount. Clinton's total went from 683 to 619, Obama's went from 404 to 365, and other candidates saw similar drops. Excluding the results of Ward 5 the error rate was less than 1%. The official explanation for the discrepancies in Ward 5, which resulted in gains of nearly 10% by each of the top candidates, was that a poll worker added the vice presidential and presidential totals before reporting. The Deputy Secretary of State, David Scanlan, estimated that the Republican recount cost $57,600 and the Democratic recount, with more votes cast, cost $67,600. Quin Monson, an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at BYU, commented: "There are people that do not trust the technology. His (Dennis Kucinich's) request for the recount is likely a response to that crowd." ==See also==