Since 1960 residents of Dixville New Hampshire cast the first election day ballots of the U.S. Presidential election moments after midnight. Kasich got 3 Republican votes and Donald Trump got 2.
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Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Ohio Governor John Kasich won in Dixville Notch, the small hamlet on the Canadian border known for being the first New Hampshire poll to report results in presidential primary elections.
“It’s a factor that’s gotten bigger every cycle, and it shows no signs of slowing down”, said Steve Koczela, who’s surveyed New Hampshire independents as president of MassINC Polling Group and found Kasich and Sanders buoyed by the most favorable perceptions among these voters in a mid-January WBUR poll. “There’s no historical relationship between the performances of the two major-party candidates in Dixville Notch and their performances in the rest of New Hampshire never mind the rest of the country”.
Despite Dixville Notch being better known for its midnight voting, Millsfield residents have been invoking their town’s history to poke fun at their neighbours. Ted Cruz is hoping his surprise Iowa win can power him to second in New Hampshire, while Marco Rubio hopes his surge to third in Iowa will do the same.
For what little it’s worth – and truly, it’s worth just a little – three Republicans received nine votes apiece in the vote-in-the-dark-of-night towns: U.S. Sen.
Clinton, meanwhile, won Millsfield with two votes.
Tillotson, who also acts as the organizer of the midnight vote, insists there wasn’t any competition between the hamlets.
Dixville Notch is one of three sites where voting opens at midnight. Mark Stewart Greenstein, a Democratic candidate from the Live Free or Die Alliance also got two votes.
State law allows towns, or unincorporated communities like Dixville Notch and Millsfield, to open their polls at midnight and close them shortly after only if they can prove that everyone who wanted to vote was able to. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie followed with two votes, while former Floridan Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen.
On the Republican side, Kasich earned five votes to Trump’s four.
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If you’re keeping tally, that puts Republican candidates Kasich, Trump and Cruz in a three-way tie for first place with nine votes each.
