1976 United States presidential election in New Hampshire

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1976 United States presidential election in New Hampshire
Flag of New Hampshire.svg
  1972 November 2, 1976 1980  
  Gerald Ford presidential portrait (cropped 2).jpg Jimmy Carter 1977 cropped.jpg
Nominee Gerald Ford Jimmy Carter
Party Republican Democratic
Home state Michigan Georgia
Running mate Bob Dole Walter Mondale
Electoral vote40
Popular vote185,935147,635
Percentage54.75%43.47%

New Hampshire Presidential Election Results 1976.svg
New Hampshire Presidential Results 1976 by Municipality.svg

President before election

Gerald Ford
Republican

Elected President

Jimmy Carter
Democratic

The 1976 United States presidential election in New Hampshire took place on November 2, 1976, as part of the 1976 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all 50 states and D.C. Voters chose four representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Contents

New Hampshire was won by the Republican nominees, incumbent President Gerald Ford of Michigan and his running mate Senator Bob Dole of Kansas. Ford and Dole defeated the Democratic nominees, Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia and his running mate Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota.

Ford took 54.75% of the vote to Carter's 43.47%, a margin of 11.28%. Anti-war former Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, running as an Independent presidential candidate, came in a distant third, with 1.21%. New Hampshire in this era normally leaned Republican, having not gone Democratic since the nationwide Democratic landslide of 1964. The Northern moderate Republican Ford easily triumphed in New Hampshire over the Southern Democrat Jimmy Carter.

On the county map, Ford won nine of New Hampshire's ten counties, with only rural Coos County in the far north of the state giving a 51-49 majority to Carter. In a sign of the state's Republican trend that would occur in the 1970s and 1980s, even while narrowly losing the national race, Ford won two of the state's traditional New Deal Democratic counties, with a majority win in Hillsborough County and a plurality win in Strafford County. Since 1932, both of these counties, along with Coos County, had gone Democratic in every close presidential election or Democratic victory, voting every time for Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Hubert H. Humphrey. Carter became the first Democrat to win the White House without carrying Hillsborough County and Strafford County since Grover Cleveland in 1892.

Ford's decisive victory in New Hampshire, while narrowly losing the national race, would make the state over 13% more Republican than the national average in the 1976 election. As of the 2024 presidential election, this is the last time that a Democrat would win a presidential election without carrying New Hampshire, and the last presidential election until 2016 when the winner of Coös County did not also carry the state as well. The state would not vote for a losing candidate again until 2004.

Results

1976 United States presidential election in New Hampshire [1]
PartyCandidateVotesPercentageElectoral votes
Republican Gerald Ford (incumbent)185,93554.75%4
Democratic Jimmy Carter 147,63543.47%0
McCarthy '76 Eugene McCarthy 4,0951.21%0
Libertarian Roger MacBride 9360.28%0
Write-ins Write-ins 6040.18%0
U.S. Labor Lyndon LaRouche 1860.05%0
Socialist Workers Peter Camejo 1610.05%0
Socialist Labor Julius Levin 660.02%0
Totals339,618100.00%4
Voter Turnout (Voting age/Registered)57%/71%

Results by county

County [2] Gerald Ford
Republican
Jimmy Carter
Democratic
Eugene McCarthy
McCarthy ‘76
Various candidates
Other parties
MarginTotal votes cast
#%#%#%#%#%
Belknap 9,87660.78%6,14337.81%1200.74%1100.68%3,73322.97%16,249
Carroll 8,56170.18%3,37427.66%1691.39%940.77%5,18742.52%12,198
Cheshire 12,55453.87%10,38844.57%2601.12%1030.44%2,1669.30%23,305
Coös 7,09448.46%7,38550.45%920.63%670.46%-291-1.99%14,638
Grafton 14,43060.34%8,99637.62%3691.54%1190.50%5,43422.72%23,914
Hillsborough 53,58153.11%45,54445.15%1,1681.16%5870.58%8,0377.96%100,880
Merrimack 21,85358.62%14,86539.87%3771.01%1870.50%6,98818.75%37,282
Rockingham 36,73853.92%30,05144.11%9031.33%4380.64%6,6879.81%68,130
Strafford 14,56949.61%14,56649.60%500.17%1800.61%30.01%29,365
Sullivan 6,67950.57%6,32347.88%1371.04%680.51%3562.69%13,207
Total185,93554.75%147,63543.47%4,0951.21%1,9530.58%38,30011.28%339,618

Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic

See also

References

  1. "1976 Presidential General Election Results - New Hampshire". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved November 16, 2013.
  2. Our Campaigns; NH US President Race, November 02, 1976