New Hampshire would play a pivotal role in the outcome of the 2000 presidential election as George W. Bush defeated Al Gore in New Hampshire by a narrow 1.27% (or a raw-vote margin of 7,211 votes), in the midst of one of the closest elections in US history.

Had Gore won the state, New Hampshire's electoral college votes would have swung the national election in his favor.

As of 2020, this is the most recent election in which a Republican presidential candidate has carried a state in New England, although Donald Trump would later win a single electoral vote from Maine in 2016, 2020 and 2024.

In 2020, Joe Biden carried New Hampshire by a fairly comfortable 7.35%, prompting some to wonder whether it was losing its battleground-state status.

[3] Although voters select or write in their preferred candidate on a ballot, voters in New Hampshire, as in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, technically cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College.

Since New Hampshire is represented by 2 congressional districts and 2 senators, it is allocated 4 electoral votes.