As results start to come in across the state Tuesday night, there are several places that could offer clues about how the race is unfolding for Nikki Haley and former President Donald J. Trump.
In New Hampshire, election results are reported by towns rather than counties. Here are 16 towns to keep tabs on:
Bedford and Londonderry
These two purple towns between Nashua and Manchester are affluent suburbs that have been steadily growing since 2010 — and growing bluer too.
In Bedford, Mr. Trump won in 2016 by five points, but by 2020 the town had flipped, and Joseph R. Biden Jr. won by three. Independent swing voters who backed Mr. Trump in 2016 but favored Mr. Biden in 2020 will be an important contingent for Ms. Haley on Tuesday.
“She should do really well there. If Trump is holding his own there or even winning, then it will be a better night for him than polls are showing,” said Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire who studies the state’s politics and has written about key places to watch.
Derry
Mr. Trump carried Derry easily in 2016 and 2020 in both the general and primary elections. There’s little reason to doubt that he will win there again, but precisely how many votes he gets could have interesting implications for the wider race.
If turnout is weak in Derry, it could indicate that enthusiasm for Trump is waning a bit, said Anna Brown, the director of Citizens Count, a nonpartisan voter education nonprofit. “Or if their turnout is very high, at that point I’m looking at: Which way is it going? Do we have a lot of people that are jumping on Nikki Haley, or is this Trump just proving he’s as strong as ever?” she said.
Just don’t confuse Derry with its neighbor, Londonderry. Derry is more conservative and rural than Londonderry, which has a higher median income.
Sharon, Peterborough and Hancock
John Kasich, the former Ohio governor who ran for the G.O.P. nomination on a message of bipartisanship, won these three towns in 2016. Sharon swung especially strongly for Mr. Kasich, who took home 31.7 percent of the total vote — more than double his statewide result.
Mr. Scala, the University of New Hampshire professor, calls them “Kasich towns.”
“She’s got to perform very well” in these places, he said of Ms. Haley. “More highly educated, prosperous areas in general are places where she needs to do very well,”
These three towns are clustered along Route 202 to the west of Manchester and Nashua. A good night for Mr. Trump could mean he overtakes Ms. Haley there and sweeps the western half of Hillsborough County.
Hanover, Lyme and Lebanon
These affluent, highly educated towns around Dartmouth College and the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center should be full of the types of voters who would support Ms. Haley over Mr. Trump. (He trails Ms. Haley by 12 points among the college-educated, according to a CNN/UNH poll of primary voters).
So if Mr. Trump over-performs here, it could mean that moderate and liberal-leaning independents stayed home Tuesday rather than turning out to support Ms. Haley. Losing those voters, or winning them by only a small margin, could indicate that her base of support is much smaller than she needs it to be.
Dr. Scala noted the lone county in Iowa where Ms. Haley finished ahead of her rivals.
“That one county that she won, barely, was Johnson County, home of the University of Iowa,” he said. “That to me is like the worst-case scenario.”
East Kingston, Lancaster, Newmarket, Pembroke, Rochester, Sanbornton and Washington
The winner of the Republican primary in these seven towns has gone on to win statewide in every election since 1952.
That could change, of course — just look at what happened in 2016 to Dixville Notch’s streak of predicting the eventual Republican nominee. But keep an eye on them, if only to see if their streak holds.
