How Obama Won New Hampshire — The In-Depth, Town-by-Town Data Analysis.

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…by Anura Guruge

Related:
NH red and blue town-by-town map — Nov. 14, 2012.

Well, we all know that President Barack Obama again won New Hampshire, which was a battleground state, and superficially ‘red’, especially if you went by the roadside political signs.

Voting in NH is done in terms of 237 ‘towns’, a few of them having multiple precincts such that there is a total of 301 precincts. This ‘deep dive’ computerized analysis, however, is done in terms of the 237 ‘towns’ as this is the most germane and meaningful.

A Grand Total of 705,874 valid votes were cast in
New Hampshire on November 6, 2012.

Obama got 368,529 (52.2%) of those votes.

Romney got 327,870 (46.4%) votes and the two ‘independents’, Goode and Johnson, got 1,156 (0.2%) and 8,319 (1.2%) respectively.

Obama thus won by 40,659 votes (5.8%).

But the above doesn’t tell you the whole, intriguing story. So given that computerized data analysis is something that I relish doing (and do a lot in terms of my papal history research) I went about setting up an Excel spread sheeting and analyzing the data. I got the raw data from WMUR, from this page. [No, I did not type it in. It is all a matter of ‘copy-paste-replace-replace-tabulate-cut-paste’ and viola!]

Obama won more votes than Romeny in 142 ( 59.9%) towns in NH. So that is more than is 52.2% ‘popular’ vote win.

He won Dalton’s 492 votes by ONE (1)!; Obama 241, Romney 240 & Johnson 11.

He won Deering by 3.

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Obama lost 94 towns to Romney, with Dixville (the 1st in the Nation to announce the vote) the ONLY tie.

Obama lost Haverhill by 1 vote.

The towns in which Obama had the greatest majority in terms of the votes cast (i.e., ‘%). Lyme tops the list, with intellectual Hanover, home of ‘Dartmouth’, coming in next. This list makes interesting reading.

The top NH Obama towns in terms of ‘%’ win. Click to ENLARGE.

The towns that were the most Pro-Romney in terms of ‘%’, and it grieves me that New Ispwich (which was my 1st home in NH, 1986 to 1996 and still home to my eldest, though my son voted in MA) and Alton (2007 ->) are right there at the bottom! But, we won.

This chart, which shows the top 10 numerical plurality that Obama enjoyed tells the story as to how and where Obama won NH. He won all the big [i.e., most populous] towns. As Bill Clinton will say, the rest is arithmetic.

Where Obama won BIG. Click to ENLARGE.

So just in these 10 towns he got a 41,722 vote lead.

In the 142 towns he carried, his total lead was 73,213.

In the 94 towns he lost, his deficit was 32,554 — hence the overall 40,569 win.

The town with the numerically largest anti-Obama vote was Bedford, with 3,277. Alton’s ‘margin’ was 940, that of Gilford 315.

Though I am very possessive of my popes-related Excel spread sheets, I am happy to freely share with Excel spread sheet with anyone else who is interested. Just e-mail me.