FACTBOX: New Hampshire and its presidential primary

(Reuters) - Rural, white and increasingly wealthy, New Hampshire conducts the first presidential nominating primary for the November 2008 U.S. election on Tuesday.

Below are facts about New Hampshire and its primary.

* Polls will close in the state at 8 p.m. EST and results are expected to roll in quickly.

* The New Hampshire primary, which follows Iowa's less formal caucuses, has historically wielded an outsize influence in the presidential selection process. Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan saw their presidential prospects boosted after strong performances there, while incumbent Lyndon Johnson decided to retire after a poor showing in 1968.

* More recently, the state's independent-minded voters have supported underdogs such as John McCain in 2000 and Pat Buchanan in 1996, both of whom ultimately failed to win the Republican Party nomination.

* Once reliably Republican, Democrats have carried New Hampshire in three of the past four presidential elections.

* Participation in the New Hampshire primary is typically high: about 40 percent of registered voters cast a ballot in 2004, while Iowa's caucuses drew only 6 percent of registered voters that year.

* New Hampshire had the fastest growth in the Northeast from the 1960s through the 1990s thanks to its low-tax, business-friendly climate. The state has one of the nation's highest growth rates of high-tech jobs.

* Some 94 percent of the state's 1.3 million people are white, compared with 67 percent of the United States as a whole.

* In 2004, the median household income in New Hampshire was $53,377, above the national average of $44,334. About 6.6 percent of the population lived below the poverty line, compared with 12.7 percent nationally. The median age is 39, almost three years higher than the national average, and just 5.4 percent of the state's residents were born outside the United States, compared to 12.5 percent nationally.

Sources: Reuters, U.S. Census Bureau, New Hampshire Secretary of State, Almanac of American Politics

(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan, Scott Malone and Paul Grant; editing by Eric Walsh)