What does it mean when they are talking about new hampshire and iowa in american elections?

Question

What does it mean when they are talking about new hampshire and iowa in american elections?

Answer 1

Iowa and new hampsire have the most people who vote in polls, so its a good thing if you win in polls in those two states

Answer 2

The presidential election will be the first Tuesday of November 2008.  Before then each state will have a primary election.  Then at the Democratic convention and at the Republican convention in the summer, the person in each party who had the most votes in the primaries will be nominated as the candidate who will represent their parties in the November election.  Iowa had the first primary (they call it a caucas) and this week, New Hampshire will have their primary.

Answer 3

Those two states in the United States have traditionally been among the first to hold primaries--mini-elections within the mainstream political parties where each party decides who they will submit to be candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency.  It's been held, traditionally, that this is a part of the process by which each mainstream party narrows its own field of candidates down to one pair.

Never mind for the moment that the tradition is a little outdated, or that the system itself is more than a bit corrupt.  Point is, both the Media outlets, and many of the American people, believe that the outcomes of pollings and elections in these two states, among a few others, are pretty good predictors as to who will be nominated for the Presidency once the primaries take place.  Most people think that opinions in Iowa and New Hampshire, among three or four other states, are fairly representative of the "middle of the road" for the average American voter, neither too liberal, nor too conservative.

Then again, until Christopher Columbus, most people thought the earth was *flat* too.  -_-  The system is corrupt (bought out by special Big Business interests) and is also *severely* biased these days against *more urban* populations--both in the sense of ethnic minorities and in the sense of more liberal and/or non-traditional sorts of politics (Ron Paul gets himself screwed on this one as badly as the Greens do).  About the only serious historical presences of *city* influence in the system have been in the primaries in Chicago, and those have been a problem because they were among the first to be bought out by Big Business interests, after New York was in the late 1800s.

But I digress.  Point is, when folks talk about Iowa and New Hampshire, they're *usually* talking about polling and/or projected early primary results ("if the election/primary was held today..." sorts of questions), in an effort to figure out early on *who* the mainstream parties are going to support, to see *who* (in terms of people) and *what* (in terms of issues) to vote for.

Essentially, this is when the most (mis)information gets out about the candidates.  People who have already done their research and/or made their minds up independently aren't likely going to be swayed, barring major relevations.  It's all busy work at the margins of the voting populace...

Trouble is, as apathetic as most voters are, and as close as many elections get, this kind of "busy work" is the sort of stuff that wins elections.  Just ask Bush and Cheney sometime....

Hope this helps.  ^_^  Good Question!

Answer 4

Iowa is the first state to vote for the primaries.  This is when the different parties choose their candidate to run for president.  For example, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards are all democrats, but only one of them will run for president against the republican party.  Iowa is a big deal because it is the first, and therefore puts the winning candidate ahead.  It also has a decent number of electoral votes.  New Hampshire is the second state to vote.

Answer 5

New Hampshire and Iowa are the initial salvoes in the selection of candidates that changes the votes of undecided voters.

Answer 6

Iowa and New Hampshire are traditionally the first primaries held.  The numbers themselves are insignificant, as both are small states in terms of population, but they serve as a rangefinder for candidates, and an indicator of what a candidate has to do to adjust.