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Research dossier · History & Society

1996 United States presidential election in New Hampshire

election in New Hampshire

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ7892935 ↗
Source-derived summary

The 1996 United States presidential election in New Hampshire took place on November 5, 1996, as part of the 1996 United States presidential election. Voters chose four representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

Although traditionally a Republican state, 1996 would mark the second presidential election in a row that New Hampshire was won by Democrat Bill Clinton, by then the incumbent president. Clinton took 49.32% of the popular vote over Republican challenger Bob Dole, who took 39.37%, a victory margin of 9.95%. Reform Party candidate Ross Perot finished in third, with 9.69% of the popular vote.

Clinton's nearly 10-point victory in New Hampshire was much more convincing than his previous win in the state in 1992; that year he had only eked out a narrow plurality of 39% over George H. W. Bush's 38%, with Ross Perot taking nearly 23% of the vote. For a state that had voted over 60% Republican as recently as 1988, Clinton's victories represented a dramatic shift toward the Democratic Party in New Hampshire. Since then the state has voted Democratic in every presidential election, except in 2000, when George W. Bush eked out a narrow plurality win over Al Gore.

Primaries

The New Hampshire Secretary of State set the primary for February 20, 1996, in accordance with state law requiring the primary to be held at least one week before another state's primary. However, Delaware held its primary in February 24, but New Hampshire declined to alter its date.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “1996 United States presidential election in New Hampshire” as election in New Hampshire. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1996, 1992, 1988, 2000—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where United, States and presidential can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as election in New Hampshire. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7892935. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1996, 1992, 1988 and 2000.

Critical limits

Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “1996 United States presidential election in New Hampshire”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 1996 United States presidential election in New Hampshire primary sources, 1996 United States presidential election in New Hampshire archive and United research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1996 United States presidential election in New Hampshire”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1996 United States presidential election in New Hampshire” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.