Mar. 10, 1964 - Henry Cabot Lodge, a write-in candidate in New Hampshire’s GOP Presidential preferential primary, surged ahead of Senator Barry Goldwater and Governor Nelson Rockefeller tonight as returns mounted. First Rockefeller, then Goldwater, had taken early leads then fallen back.
With 36% of the vote in, the Manchester Union-Leader reported Lodge had 12,001 votes, Goldwater 9,663, Rockefeller 8,221, and Richard M. Nixon 6,847. Trailing were Harold Stassen with 583, Sen. Margaret Chase Smith of Maine with 841, Governor George Romney of Michigan with 48, and Governor William Scranton of Pennsylvania with 44.
Lodge, halfway around the world in Saigon and not even a declared candidate, piled up margins in territory that had been considered favorable to Goldwater or Rockefeller. Lodge’s son, George Cabot Lodge, said in Boston tonight that his father would be “surprised and gratified by the support” given him.
He said he did not know whether his father would resign as Ambassador to South Vietnam if he won the primary. He said: “I know he will accept the nomination if it comes to him.”
In today’s Democratic Presidential preferential primary, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy was receiving more write-in votes for the Vice Presidency than President Johnson for the Presidency. The first seven state wards gave Johnson 502 votes, Kennedy 834.
