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This race has been over since Rick Perry's brief rollercoaster ride from fresh face in the campaign, to frontrunner and ultimately to also-ran.

Reihan Salam, columnist at The Daily and blogger for National Review Online's The Agenda, and David Woodard, Clemson University professor and Republican consultant, discuss the implications of yesterday's New Hampshire GOP primary.

Dante Chinni, Patchwork Nation director, and author of the book Our Patchwork Nation, offers analysis about how the New Hampshire primary results broke down demographics.

Mitt Romney had a lot of advantages going into New Hampshire – from residency to voter demographics – and in the end it all showed up on Tuesday night.

As Republican primary voters in the Granite State head to the polls today, Brendan Nyhan, Assistant Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, describes the last few days of campaigning, this weekend’s debates, and what we can expect tonight.

New Hampshire still has the power to surprise tonight.  If Jon Huntsman pulls an upset, and I don't mean surprising people with a second place finish, I mean an honest to goodness ran-away-with-it upset, that might be a game-changer.

Recap from It's a Free Country.

Welcome to Politics Bites, where every afternoon at It's A Free Country, we bring you the unmissable quotes from the morning's political conversations on WNYC. Today on the Brian Lehrer Show, Josh Rogers, political reporter for New Hampshire Public Radio, and Anna Sale, It's A Free Country political reporter, talked about Tuesday's New Hampshire primary and the last-minute challenges for Mitt Romney.

According to a Gallup Poll released Monday, 40 percent of American voters identified themselves as poltically independent in 2011. This is the highest yearly yield in the poll's history. But whether independents get burned out after their favorite spitfire candidate doesn't make it past the primaries or if they successfully push mainstream candidates towards the fringe in 2012 is still unclear.

The University of New Hampshire Survey Center estimates that 56 percent of the people voting in the Republican primary will be registered Republicans. This means that 44 percent of voters who will participate in Tuesday's primary are undeclared, a noticeable increase from 2008's primary. The same poll also found that Mitt Romney has a slight lead among both groups. To figure out what's been persuading voters either way, The Takeaway speaks with three New Hampshire conservatives.

If Mitt Romney can hold on for a victory in New Hampshire, he will have history on his side: in every contested Republican primary season since 1980, no candidate has won the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. And while Romney may not have a hometown advantage, his reputation as former governor of neighboring Massachusetts has in part helped propel him to the top of many pre-primary polls. But polls and actual votes — as evidenced by his eight-vote caucus victory — are very different things.

Thanks to a latex pioneer who lived to be 102 years old, the tiny village of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire (pop. 9) is the first community to cast its ballots in the state’s first-in-the-nation primary.

Two hope to keep their surprising momentum going, while a third looks for his big break.

A tracking poll shows Romney sliding. Is this the Iowa roller coaster all over again?

There were two debates over the weekend: the ABC/Yahoo debate Saturday night, and the "Meet the Press" debate on Sunday morning. Whether any particular candidate's performance will reinvigorate their campaign or guarantee them solid lead in Tuesday's primary remains uncertain. But during both debates, it became clear that Iowa caucus victor Mitt Romney was a target.

In Iowa, Mitt Romney just squeaked by, winning the state's caucus with an eight vote margin over former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum's late in the game surge from behind. But New Hampshire is a different ballgame. Romney, former Governor of neighboring Massachusetts has had a near hometown advantage in the Granite State. He has been leading in the polls for weeks and is not letting up heading into tomorrow's primary vote. 

Good luck, Newt. Pandora's Box of corporate money has been opened by the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United, and all your rhetoric, offended posture and finger-wagging won't change anything. Romney's own millions are backed by millions more that have been given unfettered access to flood our elections.

With neatly combed white hair, conservatively cut suits, and solid military service, Ron Paul may not seen like the fiery political outsider that all the kids are rallying around. But looking ahead to the New Hampshire primaries, pollster John Zogby says "Ron Paul gets 35 percent of Independents and 54 percent of 18 to 29 year olds." Many young voters in this age group are drawn to Paul's hard-line libertarian politics, particularly his anti-war stance.

New Hampshire poses a much bigger threat to the Republican Party's struggle to designate a Presidential nominee than we thought.

Aside from only losing by eight votes, Rick Santorum's second-place status is even more remarkable given that he had remained near the bottom of polls for months. Displaying a momentum of interest the GOP field hasn't seen since Herman Cain, there's a good chance Santorum could overtake Romney in New Hampshire.

Now that Iowa’s critical caucus is over, attention turns to the nation’s first primary. A predominately Republican state, New Hampshire primary has held many surprises in the past, such as John McCain's overwhelming victory over George W. Bush in 2000. Former Utah Governor John Hunstman has almost solely focused on New Hampshire over the past months, and spent Tuesday evening campaigning in the New England state instead of Iowa.