New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primaries will be held on Tuesday. Here are three things to know before them:

Polls show Sanders, Trump in front

The latest Real Clear Politics average of polling data shows Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders leading the Democratic primary and business mogul Donald Trump leading on the GOP side.

Sanders leads former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by an average of 53.6 percent to 40.4 percent, according to RCP, while Trump has 31.3 percent of support to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s 15.1 percent.

But different polls show a wide variance in the leads that Sanders and Trump hold. Sanders is up 23 points in the most recent CNN/WMUR poll, but the most recent Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll shows his lead at just 9 percent. Meanwhile, Trump’s lead over Rubio is 22 percent in the most recent UMass Lowell poll but just 10 percent in the latest Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll.

Race for second place

While polls show Trump as the favorite to win New Hampshire’s Republican primary, the battle for second place is less clear.

Given margins of error, some polls — such as the latest Monmouth University and WBUR polls — show a statistical four-way tie between Rubio, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

The actual results could be in part determined by a wave of voters that are currently undecided. Only 49 percent of likely Republican primary voters have completely made up their mind, according to the Monmouth poll, while 21 percent either only have a slight preference or are completely undecided.

For Kasich, a poor result Tuesday could lead to him suspending his campaign. He has told voters that he plans to drop out of the race if he doesn’t perform well in New Hampshire, according to The Washington Post.

New Hampshire details

While New Hampshire only awards 23 total delegates on the Republican side and 32 for Democrats, the state is sometimes predictive of things to come.

Since 1976, five eventual Republican nominees facing opposition and five eventual Democratic nominees facing opposition have won New Hampshire.

On the Democratic side, those nominees were Jimmy Carter twice (1976 and 1980), Michael Dukakis (1988), Al Gore (2000) and John Kerry (2004). Most recently, though, Clinton placed first the state in 2008 over eventual nominee Barack Obama.
On the Republican side, eventual nominees Gerald Ford (1976), Ronald Reagan (1980), George H.W. Bush (1988), John McCain (2008) and Mitt Romney (2012) have won New Hampshire.

Published on February 7, 2016 at 11:32 pm

Contact Michael: mdburk01@syr.edu