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“If there is an ornery streak to New Hampshire primaries, it has to do with the fact there are so many independent voters,” Dartmouth’s Linda Fowler tells The Boston Globe in an article about ballots cast by the first-in-the-nation’s primary voters, who often pick the maverick candidate in presidential primary voting. “This group tends to make up their mind really late and in reaction to what happened in Iowa or what is going on in the news. Often the message they send is to tell the winner in Iowa to hold up and that they cannot have the nomination right away.”

Fowler is professor emeritus of government.