Trump Dominates First-in-the-Nation Midnight Voting in New Hampshire
Two New Hampshire communities which are traditionally among the first to cast their votes for president made their preferences known early Tuesday.
The towns of Dixville Notch and Millsfield held their midnight voting, and the results were split, though President Donald Trump won a solid overall majority.
Just after 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday morning, five registered voters in Dixville Notch near the Canadian border turned in their ballots.
The result was a sweep, with all five of the community’s voters choosing Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Dixville Notch has held midnight voting for the last 60 years, since President John F. Kennedy was elected, The New York Times reported.
The community could not celebrate the 60th anniversary of the tradition as it might have liked due to fears about the spread of the coronavirus.
“Sixty years — and unfortunately, we can’t celebrate it,” town moderator Tom Tillotson told The Associated Press.
The tiny community also voted at midnight in 2016, but the results were not indicative of the overall race.
Further south, in the community of Millsfield, voters also showed up for the traditional midnight voting.
The results there were much different than in Dixville Notch.
President Donald Trump dominated Biden in a sample of 21 voters.
?Millsfield, NH
The Birth Place of Midnight Voting, First in the Nation, has voted and have declared @realDonaldTrump as the winner ??#nhpolitics #firstinthefield #LeadRight pic.twitter.com/ly5qqNP77J
— Emily Hottinger (@emhottinger) November 3, 2020
The Trump-Pence ticket defeated the Biden-Harris ticket by a tally of 16 votes to five votes.
Combining the results from the two small towns, Trump thus led Biden by a 16-10 vote tally.
That’s good for a Trump victory margin in the Granite State of 62.5 percent compared Biden’s 37.5 percent.
That margin will change as more voters head to the polls Tuesday morning.
A third community in New Hampshire, Hart’s Location, generally participates in the midnight voting tradition, but the practice was canceled amid the pandemic, according to CNN.
New Hampshire’s midnight voting hasn’t always been successful in predicting who will win the race.
CNN reported that during midnight voting in 2016, eight Dixville Notch voters participated, and the majority chose Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. Clinton received four votes, while Trump won the approval of two voters.
Gary Johnson received an additional vote, as did 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, whose name was written in.
Trump, of course, went on to win the 2016 race.
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