ABSTRACT
New Hampshire held its first presidential primary in 1916. As in other states, candidate selection procedures had been reformed by the antipartisan impulse of the Progressive movement. An open primary, a contest open to voters from any or no declared party, had been instituted in 1910 by future governor Robert P. Bass. The first New Hampshire primary to feature a preference ballot came at an auspicious time for the Republican party in its efforts to end twenty years of Democratic dominance in Washington. At the beginning of 1968, President Johnson was considered a virtual certainty for renomination, if not re-election. In a situation closely mirroring Harry Truman's in 1952, Johnson was unpopular as the result of war policies in Southeast Asia but considered to have complete control of the party machinery and therefore the nomination. The result of the 1988 New Hampshire primaries served only to confirm the state's reputation as a presidential benchmark.
