The first votes of the New Hampshire primary were cast in Dixville Notch, with all six voters favoring former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. “A great start to a great day in New Hampshire,” Haley expressed in a statement shortly after the vote was recorded. “Thank you Dixville Notch!”
The small northern New Hampshire town opened and closed its poll just after midnight ET on the day of the state’s primary. The vote saw participation from four registered Republican voters and two independents, with former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nomination front-runner, failing to secure any support.
Dixville Notch, located at the northernmost point of New Hampshire, is renowned for being the first place to declare primary results due to its early voting tradition, a practice dating back to 1960. Although the neighboring towns of Hart’s Location and Millsfield initiated midnight voting before Dixville Notch, they have not maintained the tradition continuously and did not conduct midnight voting this year.
The three towns were fictionalized in an episode of Aaron Sorkin’s “West Wing” titled “Hartsfield’s Landing.” Historically, Dixville Notch’s midnight voting took place at the now-defunct Balsams Hotel, which over the years has become a media spectacle. Despite the hotel’s closure and pending redevelopment, and concerns about the town’s dwindling population, the midnight voting tradition has persisted.
Dixville Notch’s ability to uphold this mini-contest despite its decreasing population is viewed as a triumph for local leaders and a source of excitement for political enthusiasts seeking an early indication of the election outcome. In the 2020 Democratic primary, the town’s voters supported former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but later unanimously cast five votes for the eventual general election winner, Joe Biden, despite his name not appearing on the ballot.
However, no delegates were awarded due to a dispute between the state and the Democratic National Committee, which moved the first approved primary to South Carolina. Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota was listed on the ballot but did not receive any votes.
According to Town Moderator Tom Tillotson, his father, former Balsams resort owner Neil Tillotson, worked to incorporate Dixville Notch specifically to enable community voting and prevent residents from having to travel nearly an hour in the snow to vote. However, he warned against reading too much into the midnight results. “There’s no magic bullet that comes out of here that tells people what to do or what’s going to happen. Sometimes we are right. Sometimes we are wrong,” Tillotson stated.
His key message was to encourage participation in the democratic process. “If all these people in the wilderness can get up at midnight and go vote, 100% of the town, maybe we should take voting a little more seriously. If we do anything positive, it’s maybe encourage a few extra people to vote,” Tillotson said.
Contributions to this report were made by CNN’s Ethan Cohen, Molly English, Gregory Krieg, and Eric Bradner.