UPDATE 12:41 p.m: He made it! Gary Johnson filed for the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, arriving at 11:15 a.m. to formally add his name to the state’s ballot. 
 
 Note to presidential candidates: Beware the nor’easter. 
 
 Mr. Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, caught a red-eye from Arizona on Friday morning so he could get to New Hampshire in time to get his name on the ballot. 
 
 The deadline is by the close of business on Friday. Mr. Johnson’s campaign was supposed to file already, but somehow there was a mix-up. And so the candidate rushed to do it in person. 
 
 It looks like he will just make it. But Mother Nature could have been cruel. An early winter storm is scheduled to hit the Northeast starting Friday, and could dump up to 12 inches of snow in some areas. 
 
 If the storm had swept in 24 hours earlier, Mr. Johnson might have found himself out of luck. 
 
 New Hampshire is expected to hold the primary on Jan. 10. ||||| *** UPDATE *** Gary Johnson -- who failed to file by proxy today while he was campaigning in Arizona -- is taking a red eye to New Hampshire and will file in person first thing in the morning at the State House in Concord. 
 
 "The technical term is that we screwed up," Johnson's communications director Joe Hunter told NBC by phone last night. 
 
 CONCORD, N.H. -- Longshot presidential candidate Gary Johnson, a former two-term governor of New Mexico, likely will not be on the ballot for the New Hampshire Republican primary, all but ending any chance he could have had at the nomination. 
 
 Despite a significant amount of time spent in the state, including biking hundreds of miles with his fiancée and son to draw attention to his campaign -- and even renting a home in the state, the staunch libertarian missed the deadline to file by mail or representative, which was today at 4:30 pm ET. Johnson is campaigning in Arizona through the weekend and, according to a spokesman, has no plans to be in New Hampshire tomorrow. 
 
 The missed deadline comes as a surprise not just to political watchers, but also the Johnson campaign itself. 
 
 "The last I heard it was going to be filed today by a representative," said Joe Hunter, Johnson’s communications director, sounding shocked, in a telephone interview when told the news by NBC. Asked if Johnson will fly to New Hampshire tomorrow, the final day of the filing period, Hunter said no. 
 
 Johnson missing the deadline is also surprising, considering he has already filed for the South Carolina primary, with its $35,000 fee, NBC’s Ali Weinberg reports. New Hampshire’s is just $1,000. 
 
 This isn’t the first embarrassing misstep by the Johnson campaign in the Granite State. On his most recent campaign swing here, he scheduled a town hall in Concord. But no one except members of the media showed. His campaign blamed that on planned robo-calls not being executed in time. 
 
 Trying to show how important New Hampshire was to him in his presidential campaign plans, Johnson rented a home in Manchester. 
 
 He has also appeared in two nationally televised debates, and continues to lobby for spots in other upcoming debates. 
 
 The Secretary of State's office said Johnson's campaign never reached out to Secretary of State Bill Gardner or indicated it planned to file. 
 
 As of today, 24 Republicans and 12 Democrats are on the ballot for the New Hampshire primary. ||||| Gary Johnson knew he was an underdog for the Republican presidential nomination, but his campaign laid out a strategy for breaking through, called "the New Hampshire Path."The idea was that Johnson could build a base of support in the small state where voters place a premium on retail politics. The campaign's limited resources would go further there than in more expensive states. He even rented a house in Manchester to serve as a base of operations."New Hampshire is a level playing field on which Gary Johnson will compete very effectively if given the opportunity. New Hampshire is the place where we can create momentum," Ron Nielson, a senior advisor to the former New Mexico governor, wrote last month.The strategy was well on track until Johnson nearly failed to qualify for the New Hampshire primary ballot.Friday is the final day of the two-week filing period for candidates to land on the New Hampshire primary ballot. The requirements are simple, and intentionally so: Just submit a one-page declaration of candidacy and the $1,000 filing fee.But as of Thursday evening, Johnson had not yet completed that task. State law says that the documents can be submitted by mail or by proxy. But if they are not received before the final day, the candidate must deliver them in person.Johnson was scheduled to start a three-day visit to Arizona beginning Thursday. But his campaign quickly changed plans when the embarrassing mixup was pointed out."He'll be filing in person," Johnson's New Hampshire coordinator, Brinck Slattery, said in an email.Nielson had outlined the "New Hampshire Path" in a memo on Sept. 6. By that time, Johnson had visited the Granite State 15 times. He announced his candidacy there. It had five paid staffers "and a growing network of volunteers.""We are ready to take the campaign to another level in New Hampshire, and we are confident that the results will be dramatic," he wrote.All that was nearly for naught.It's not clear yet how the campaign nearly bungled the filing, a potentially embarrassing setback for a long-shot campaign that had fared better than others like it in at least one respect: Johnson had qualified for some nationally televised debates.
– Gary Johnson complains he gets no respect in his longshot bid for the GOP nomination. Yeah, and this won't help: His campaign realized late yesterday it still hadn't filed for the New Hampshire primary, and today is the deadline, reports the Los Angeles Times. Johnson cleared his schedule to take a red-eye to the state himself and do so in person. Looks like he'll make it just ahead of a storm, notes the New York Times. "The technical term is that we screwed up," his communications director tells NBC. What's worse is that what little chance the former New Mexico governor has is predicated on doing well in the Granite State. The strategy is called "the New Hampshire Path," but it does require actually being on the ballot.