Its purpose was to determine the number of delegates from New Hampshire that would represent a certain candidate at the National Convention.

In a primary, members of a political party—in this case, the Democratic Party—will select the candidates to a subsequent election.

[1] Hillary Clinton was the winner of the popular vote in the primary, with Barack Obama trailing in second.

Clinton and Obama received an equal number of delegates to the National Convention since the percentages of their votes were close.

A state law that was passed in 1975 required that the date be set at least one week before any other similar contest.

These delegates independently represent each Congressional District; they are not affected by the results of the entire state.

Barack Obama hoped that he would win these primaries the same way he defeated Hillary Clinton at the Iowa caucuses.

Former President Bill Clinton's campaign failed in the first five state primaries and caucuses when he ran in 1992.

In the following table, the candidates' support on January 4 is compared with the results of the USA Today/Gallup poll from mid-December 2007 in New Hampshire.

These statistics are important because in 2004, the New Hampshire independents leaned towards the Democratic side in favor of then-candidate John Kerry.

However, the people of New Hampshire are divided into several smaller regions, so the entire state as a whole wouldn't have been expected to act in a uniform manner.

[9] On November 30, 2007, a man identified as 47-year old Leeland Eisenberg,[11] armed with road flares strapped to his chest which he claimed were a bomb, entered a Clinton presidential campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire.

[12] He took hostage the five people in it, and asked for Clinton, believing she could assist him in gaining psychiatric help.

[15] That evening she flew to Rochester in order to meet with and comfort the hostages,[16] praise the law enforcement officials who handled the situation,[16] and vow not to change her campaign style due to the incident.

[18] A turnout of nearly 288,000 people was even higher than expected, and was greater than the number of New Hampshire residents who voted for Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election.

He made this decision as he returned to his home state, New Mexico, on January 9, 2008, to meet with his top advisors.

[22] On January 10, 2008, presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich requested and paid for a recount to make sure that all of the votes in the Democratic primary were counted - Republican candidate Albert Howard also requested a recount in the Republican primary.

[24] The recount began on January 16, 2008 after New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner received $27,000 from Kucinich.

Vote count changes were made in places where voters did not follow directions and marked ballots that were impossible for the machines to read.

[31] Quin Monson, an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at BYU, commented: "There are people that do not trust the technology.