In December 1987, Hart returned to the race, declaring on the steps of New Hampshire Statehouse, "Let's let the people decide!" Hart said that the other candidates did not represent his new ideas of strategic investment economics, military reform and "enlightened engagement in foreign policy." Hart warned, "We could lose more young Americans unnecessarily in the Persian Gulf." He initially rose to the top of the polls nationally, and second behind Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis in New Hampshire, but was soon confronted with more negative stories about prior debts from his 1984 campaign. He competed in the New Hampshire primary and received 4,888 votes, about 4 percent. After the Super Tuesday contests on March 8, in which he won no more than 5 percent of the vote, Hart withdrew from the campaign a second time. Eventual Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis lost the 1988 United States presidential election by a substantial margin in both the popular and electoral vote, by margins unequaled since, winning in only 10 of 50 states.