Following tradition, local residents voted this morning in the tiny New Hampshire village of Dixville Notch just after the clock struck midnight -- the first Americans to cast primary votes in the first presidential primary election of 2024.
All six votes (I told you it was a small place) went to Nikki Haley. Does that mean Haley can upset Donald Trump today? History suggests probably not.
In 2000, Bill Bradley beat Al Gore 4-2 in Dixville Notch while George W. Bush eked out a 12-10 win over John McCain. (In the rest of the state, Gore defeated Bradley in a closer-than-expected race while McCain was thumping Bush.)
In 2004, Gen. Wesley Clark overwhelmed a crowded Democratic field with eight votes, one more than the total earned by John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Lieberman, and Howard Dean combined. It would be the high-water mark of Wes Clark's campaign.
In 2008 Barack Obama had seven votes in Dixville Notch, with John Edwards getting two and Bill Richardson one -- but it was Hillary Clinton who won the rest of the state.
Republican John Huntsman tied Mitt Romney (2-2) in 2012, and John Kasich edged out Donald Trump 3-2 four years later. And in the 2020 Dixville Notch primary, Mike Bloomberg got two write-in votes on the Democrat side (to one each for Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg). Bloomberg also received the sole Republican vote cast that year. Also, in the general election four years ago, Joe Biden got all five Dixville Notch votes to none for Donald Trump. Now, it's true that Biden carried New Hampshire, but not like that. (The final tally was 52.9% to 45.5%.)
So what are we to make of Dixville Notch and its early voting? The answer is not much if you're trying to dope out the statewide winner. But sometimes other things are at play in political reporting. In a lovely bit of understatement, the Associated Press put the village's quaint tradition in perspective this morning: "With such a tiny sample of voters, the results are not typically indicative of how an election will end up. But they do provide for an early curiosity."
Not just curiosity, but charm as well. I also enjoyed this passage from the story written by AP reporter Nick Perry:
"The resort town was the first place in the nation to vote in the 2024 primaries. The voters were outnumbered more than 10-to-1 by reporters from every corner of the globe -- not to mention by a pile of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies."
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon
