1988 United States presidential election in New Hampshire

1988 United States presidential election in New Hampshire

← 1984 November 8, 1988 1992 →

Nominee George H. W. Bush Michael Dukakis Party Republican Democratic Home state Texas Massachusetts Running mate Dan Quayle Lloyd Bentsen Electoral vote 4 0 Popular vote 281,537 163,696 Percentage 62.49% 36.33%

County Results Municipality Results Bush   40-50%   50-60%   60-70%   70-80%   80-90%   90-100% Dukakis   40-50%   50-60%   70-80%

President before election Ronald Reagan Republican Elected President George H. W. Bush Republican

Elections in New Hampshire
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v t e

The 1988 United States presidential election in New Hampshire took place on November 8, 1988, as part of the 1988 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all 50 states and D.C. Voters chose four representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

New Hampshire voted for the Republican nominee, Vice President George H. W. Bush, over the Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, by a landslide margin of 26.16%. Bush took 62.49% of the vote to Dukakis's 36.33%.

Compared to the rest of liberal New England, New Hampshire historically had a strong fiscal conservative streak to its politics, and Bush's pledge not to raise taxes played well to the state's anti-tax electorate. This election would prove to be the GOP's high point in New Hampshire, as the state gave Bush his second-strongest win in the nation, behind only Utah.^[1]

In the following years, the state would drift to the left, though more on social issues than on economic issues. As the Republican Party moved to embrace the Christian right and became increasingly Southern, the GOP would suffer a rapid decline in its fortunes in New Hampshire. Despite the scale of Bush's victory in 1988, no Republican has since won even a majority of the state's votes, although his son George W. Bush would eke out a narrow 48–47 plurality in 2000.

As of the 2020 presidential election^[update], this is the last election in which a Republican has been able to win every county within the state as well as the last time the counties of Cheshire, Grafton, Merrimack and Strafford voted for a Republican presidential candidate.^[2] This is also the last time that New Hampshire was won by double digits by either party, (although future Democratic candidates in both Bill Clinton, and later Barack Obama came incredibly close to doing so during their landslide victories in 1996, along with 2008).