Final NH numbers Bush only got 78% of Repub vote! Many towns < 60% !

[Dems Will Win]

NH will be ours in the GE!

http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=1228

-snip-

Moments after the polls closed in New Hampshire on January 27, Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie declared that President Bush had won 94 percent of the Republican primary vote. It was a dramatic claim. Unfortunately for Gillespie, it was dramatically inaccurate.

When the Associated Press posted the unofficial returns from the GOP primary, it reported that Bush had won a little less than 86 percent of the vote. The fact that almost one out of every seven New Hampshire voters who took Republican ballots had apparently cast them for someone other than the party's incumbent president drew little note in major media accounts, but it was intriguing enough to merit mention in this column ("Bush Slips -- Among Republicans," Online Beat, 1-20-2004).

As it turns out, however, the unofficial tally by Associated Press significantly underestimated the collapse in the president's fortunes. According to updated figures from the New Hampshire Secretary of State's office, which only today posted a final figure on the total number of ballots cast, only 78 percent of New Hampshire voters who took Republican ballots marked them for Bush. (In one New Hampshire town, Milton, Bush received only 48 percent of the vote, while in a number of others he was held below 60 percent of the vote.)

The figures on the New Hampshire Secretary of State's office website (http:// www.state.nh.us/sos/electionsnew.htm) show than 69,379 New Hampshire voters cast regular and absentee ballots in the Republican primary. Just 53,962 voted for Bush (78 percent). More than one in five Republican primary voters, 22--percent--chose not to vote for Bush.

-snip-

[xray s]

1. Is there any precedent for this?

How did Poppy do in '92?

[Timahoe]

7. Clinton got 84% in 1996

http://www.politicallibrary.org/NEW_HAMPSIRE_FIR%20(F)/build/html/recent_elections.htm

Reagan got 86% in 1984

Nixon got 67% in 1972

http://www.politicallibrary.org/NHPrimary1952-1992.htm

[trotsky]

2. Dang, that's interesting.

But does anyone know how it compares to other incumbents? Would be interesting to know what Clinton's numbers were in '96, Bush I in '92, etc.

On edit: Duh, guess I should actually go read the story. :)

[Dems Will Win]

5. Clinton was 85% but most of the time incumbents are in the 90s

[NewYorkerfromMass]

3. Kerry got 4.3% of the GOP primary vote

as a write in! I love it!

[Cheswick2.0]

9. they aren't going to vote for him in Nov

What makes you think all these republicans will crossover to vote for a guy whoes record is "more liberal than Kennedy's"?

Wake up folks, we are being had.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

11. I dunno...

but it takes an extra effort to vote a write-in. And Dean and Clark pulled in significant write-in support too (2.7% and 2.1%).

[rucky]

4. Maybe they thought Vermin Supreme was a Republican?

the name fits

[beyurslf]

6. but who else

did they vote for? Was there another name on there?

[Cheswick2.0]

8. do you know what is going on here?

Bush is unopposed, he doesn't need the vote. The republicans are manipulating the primaries in all the states that have open or crossover voting. They want to run against Kerry/Edwards in the GE because they know he will be easier to beat than Dean or Clark.

[fishnfla]

12. Yes, that is why Dean and Clark got 4.8% of the write in votes

in this closed primary.

[wryter2000]

10. Some wrote in Kerry

Randi Rhodes says 5000 republicans wrote in John Kerry's name.