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Final results: Summary results | Town resultsThe BasicsThe New Hampshire primary is a mainstay in American electoral politics. Every four years, voters gather to help determine the Republican and/or Democratic nominee for President. While the state only has 12 electoral votes in 2012 (normally it’s 24, but the Republican National Committee penalized the state party for moving up the event date), the primary’s position as one of the earliest contests gives the state out-sized influence over the nomination process.Only the Iowa caucuses come before New Hampshire’s primary. Traditionally, New Hampshire’s broad-based primary contest has been seen as a counter-weight to Iowa’s more drawn-out caucus process, which tends to draw a smaller core of party faithful. In the case of the 2012 Republican race, New Hampshire’s electorate is seen to represent the more libertarian-leaning, fiscally conservative wing of the party, while Iowa voters are seen as representing the socially conservative wing of the GOP base.N.H. Primary summary provided by StateImpact - NH reporter, Amanda Loder

478: Red State Blue State

Design by Isaac H. on Customink.com

Politics have divided our country to the extent that the two sides not only disagree on the solutions to the country’s problems, they represent two different realities. This week we hear from people who are intimately familiar with this rift. They’ve lost friends. They’ve become estranged from family. They've watched civility cede to skirmishes. Our political civil war and its consequences: a special pre-election episode.

Prologue

Ira Glass rides around with a man in the man's hometown...a man who doesn't want us to say his name on the radio. Why? Because he's secretly a Democrat, in a small town dominated by Republicans.

Act One: I Know You Are, But What Am I?

By Lisa Pollak

 We surveyed hundreds of people around the country, from every part of the of political spectrum, about the ways in which politics are interfering with their friendships and families. Producer Lisa Pollak reports. (20 minutes)

We collaborated with American Public Media’s Public Insight Network to find some of the interviewees for this story. Individual stories about how politics have affected personal relationships appear on their website.

Lisa also spoke with Phil Neisser and Jacob Hess, two political opposites and authors of You're Not as Crazy as I Thought (But You're Still Wrong), about their advice for how liberals and conservatives can have more productive conversations.

Act Two: Nothing in Moderation

By Sarah Koenig

A portrait of what it looks like when politics gets polarized, and how hard it is for people in the middle to hang on. Producer Sarah Koenig explains what happened when a wave of Republican politicians swept to power with a three-to-one majority in 2010. New Hampshire’s a small state, and the shift to a more divisive in-your-face kind of politics happened very quickly, so it’s possible to see exactly what’s gained and lost when that happens.

Song: "This Land Is Your Land", Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings

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