Cable News Plans for the First-in-the-Nation New Hampshire Primary

By Merrill Knox 

With last week’s marathon Iowa Caucus coverage behind them, the cable networks have turned their attention to New Hampshire, where the nation’s first primary will be held tomorrow.

CNN’s primary day coverage kicks off with Soledad O’Brien anchoring “StartingPoint” from New Hampshire. At 7pmET, the network will host a live election special with a panel of anchors lead by Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper along with Erin Burnett, Candy Crowley, John King. At midnight, they’ll turn it over to Piers Morgan, who will wrap things up from the CNN Election Center in Atlanta (unless, of course, the race isn’t called until 2:30am, as happened last week).

Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly will anchor primary coverage on Fox News Channel from New Hampshire starting at 8pmET. Sean Hannity will take over at 11pmET, and Greta Van Susteren will wrap things up with “On the Record” at midnight. Neil Cavuto will anchor coverage on sister channel Fox Business Network.

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On MSNBC, “Morning Joe” will broadcast from Manchester through Wednesday of this week. The evening coverage will be anchored by Rachel Maddow beginning at 6pmET. Maddow will be joined by Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, Lawrence O’Donnell and Al Sharpton.

And over on HDNet, a familiar face returns to election coverage: Dan Rather will be live from New Hampshire starting at 7pmET.

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