As I did with Iowa last week, this is an attempt to break down the number of voters in the New Hampshire primary in each party by age groups. Here's the results:
Age Democratic Republican D Share R Share
18-24 31,246 (11) 20,986 (9) 59.8 40.2
25-29 19,883 (7) 11,659 (5) 63.0 37.0
30-39 42,608 (15) 34,976 (15) 54.9 45.1
40-49 65,332 (23) 53,630 (23) 54.9 45.1
50-64 88,056 (31) 79,280 (34) 52.6 47.4
65 & + 36,926 (13) 34,976 (15) 51.4 48.6
Total 284,050 (100) 235,507* (101) 54.9 45.1
So it appears that a majority of voters in every age group voted in the Democratic primary, with younger voters voting Democratic in much greater proportions than older voters.
Like Iowa, New Hampshire voted once for Bush and once against him, before swinging solidly Democratic in 2006, so the fact that nearly 55% of New Hampshire voters chose a Democratic ballot is of considerable significance.
The pattern that the youngest age group is the most Democratic and the oldest is the most Republican, though still majority Democratic, is the same as in Iowa last week. Frustratingly, the exit polls as reported by CNN used different age groupings than those in Iowa, making direct comparisons impossible for groups 30-64.
The methodology is that I took the vote totals for candidates in each party and the percentages for each age group in the exit polls reported at the CNN website
www.cnn.com/politics
* The reported percentages by age group at the CNN website added to 100% for the Democrats, but those for Republicans added to 101%. I decided not to correct for that, as it would be arbitrary to select one age group from which to deduct the one percent. The difference amounts to overreporting the Republican vote total, which was actually 233,176, by 2,331.