The New Hampshire Republican Party's loss of 130 voters off the registration rolls since the presidential primary, according to the latest figures from the Secretary of State's office, does not look like a big deal -- until you compare it to previous GOP performance in presidential election years.
The New Hampshire Secretary of State's office typically updates voter registration figures three times in presidential years: 1) after the presidential primary in the winter, 2) after the direct state primary in September, and 3) after the general election.
During the period between the presidential primary and the September primary, the GOP has only lost voters off the rolls twice in the last seven presidential election years, starting in 1980. (Unfortunately, New Hampshire's "Red Book," the Manual for the General Court, is missing voter registration data from 1972 and 1976.)
The only other election year the GOP lost voters during this period betwen the presidential primary and the direct state primary? 1996, when the GOP lost roughly 2,200 voters, a decline of -0.8 percent.
The GOP's third-worst voter registration performance? 1992, when they only added 8,700 voters, an increase of just 3.6 percent.
Needless to say, neither Bob Dole nor George H. W. Bush succeeded in carrying New Hampshire those years.
The other years? In 1984 (the last year before this one in which there was no contested GOP presidential primary in New Hampshire), the Republicans added 9,200 voters (a 5 percent increase), and Ronald Reagan carried the Granite State easily. In two other banner Republican years, 1980 and 1988, the GOP added 22,000 (a 12 percent increase) and 26,000 (another 12 percent), respectively.
Republicans might argue that the reason for their stagnancy in voter registration is the lack of competitive GOP state primaries last month. That may be a factor, but the GOP had high-profile primaries in September 1992 and 1996, and they apparently did not help much with the anemic voter registation numbers those years.
The other possible cause is that New Hampshire voters' enthusiasm for George W. Bush is a lot closer to what they felt for his father and for Bob Dole, than what they felt for Ronald Reagan. And that might explain why we are seeing so much of the President this fall: It may not be an attempt to put New Hampshire away, but to keep it from getting away.
Comments