New Hampshire Has Few Options For Primary Date

By: David L Miller
Topics: Primary Calendar

(CBS/AP/iStockphoto)

New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner has heard the question asked in every possible way, by a multitude of reporters: When will New Hampshire hold its presidential primary?

But even with the endgame of the primary shuffle in sight, Gardner remains tight-lipped, and says he's waiting on the outcome of the legal battle in Michigan over its planned Jan. 15 primary. "It doesn't serve any useful purpose to speculate about this," he told CBSNews.com. "I don't have some flow chart here. This has been a long and winding road."

On Monday, Michigan's attorney general filed a petition asking the state's Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that legislation creating a Jan. 15 primary is unconstitutional because it would restrict public access to voter data. Meanwhile, the state's legislature could pass a revised version of the bill to pass legal muster – though prospects for that are unclear because of divisions among Democrats who control the state House.

Gardner says he's really only concerned with Michigan's Democratic Party, which has been more steadfast in its desire to hold a Jan. 15 primary than the state GOP. If Democrats somehow end up holding a primary on Jan. 15, Gardner says New Hampshire would hold its primary no later than Jan. 8 – though Gardner won't commit to that date outright. "There's been so many twists and turns that it's impossible to think of all the possible scenarios," he said.

But Gardner's own statements suggest there aren't many possibilities at all, even if both parties in Michigan retreat and vote in February: He says that Jan. 15 isn't an option because that's less than seven days before South Carolina Republicans vote on Jan. 19 – New Hampshire law requires the state vote at least a week before any other primary. He also says that the primary will be on a Tuesday, barring an "extraordinary circumstance." Two of those circumstances are Christmas and New Year's Day falling on a Tuesday, as both of them do this year.

If Jan. 15 is out, along with Jan. 1 and Dec. 25, the next available option is Dec. 18, which would give the state and the campaigns less than a month to prepare for an election, and completely upend candidates who have been planning on making their first stand in the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3.

Doesn't that mean that, almost by default, the New Hampshire primary will be on Jan. 8? "It's not the only option," Gardner insists. "That's a little too strong [a statement], because that would be setting the date."