The New Hampshire primary is here — the first presidential primary of 2020, which mercifully should be much less complicated than whatever happened last week in Iowa.
A few things to know as results come in: New Hampshire is a semi-open primary, so independents can vote in party primaries (but a registered Republican can’t vote in the Democratic primary, for instance). Polls mostly opened around 6 a.m. and will begin to close at 7 p.m. New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner is predicting a historic turnout with a winner declared around 9:30 p.m.
What do we know as voting begins about who will win? Bernie Sanders has a leg up in polling in the state, which he won convincingly in 2016. Pete Buttigieg, the other candidate to come out strong in Iowa, has appeared to gain in the last week.
How important is winning here? With just 24 pledged delegates at stake, New Hampshire doesn’t have a ton of direct electoral impact, especially relative to states coming up in early March. But performing well here is an important signal of strength for candidates hoping to continue their campaigns, and a poor result could make it hard for a candidate to raise enough money to keep going into the next two states: Nevada and South Carolina.