Donald Trump Claims Falsely That Democrats Could Vote in the New Hampshire GOP Primary

Independent voters were welcome, but registered Democrats could not participate.

Former President Donald Trump autographs hats while visiting with supporters outside the polling site at Londonderry High School on January 23, 2024, in Londonderry, New Hampshire. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Published January 23, 2024

In a post sent on Truth Social and reposted on X (formerly known as Twitter), Donald Trump expressed outrage at the prospect of Democrats and independents in New Hampshire voting in the Republican primary contest.

https://twitter.com/TrumpDailyPosts/status/1749936137563779102?s=20

While independent voters could indeed vote on the Republican ballot in the 2024 New Hampshire primaries, registered Democrats are permitted to vote only in their own primary contest.

New Hampshire utilizes a semi-closed primary system, meaning individuals registered as Republicans or Democrats are allowed to vote only in their respective primary contests. Independent voters who are not registered with either party can choose to vote in either contest, but they cannot participate in both. The deadline to switch party affiliations in New Hampshire fell on October 6, 2023, after which any individual registered as a Democrat no longer had the option to switch affiliations and vote on the Republican ballot.

Following this October deadline, the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s Office announced that approximately 3,500 voters had changed their registrations from Democrat to unenrolled. A further 400 fully swapped their affiliation from Democrat to Republican. According to the Independent Voter Project, about 30 percent of New Hampshire’s approximately 1 million registered voters were registered as Democrats as of November 2023, meaning these defections represent less than 1.5 percent of the state’s total Democrat-registered population.

Various news networks projected Donald Trump to win the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday night.

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Alex Demas

Alex Demas is a fact checker at The Dispatch and is based in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the company in 2023, he worked in England as a financial journalist and earned his MA in Political Economy at King's College London. When not heroically combating misinformation online, Alex can be found mixing cocktails, watching his beloved soccer team Aston Villa lose a match, or attempting to pet stray cats.

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