(WHDH) — Our Exclusive 7NEWS/Emerson College poll of New Hampshire voters shows Kamala Harris continues to hold a slight edge over Former President Donald Trump in the Granite State with less than 2 weeks until Election Day.
Our poll shows Harris leading Trump 50 to 47 in New Hampshire.
7NEWS/Emerson College pollster Spencer Kimball said, “I think she’s in a strong place in New Hampshire but she’s got some work still to do to maintain that lead.”
While our poll is good news for Harris, we are seeing some warning signs about her chance to win nationally.
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Four years ago, when President Biden beat then-President Trump by the narrowest of margins in a handful of battleground states, he won New Hampshire by 7 points. That’s more than double the lead Harris has over Trump in NH right now.
“It is a bit of a warning that she’s underperforming Biden and that Biden barely squeaked by Trump,” he said. Looking deeper into the numbers, Kimball says Harris has a similar edge with women in the state compared to Biden four years ago. But more male voters are choosing Trump.
“Male voters are now breaking heavily towards Trump by two to three points more than they did for Biden and the female vote is either staying the same with Harris or sometimes drifting a little bit towards Trump. And so that’s not a good recipe for Harris at this time,” he said.
When it comes to independents, the difference is even sharer. Independents are breaking for Harris by 13 percent in our poll. That’s not even half of the advantage Biden had with New Hampshire independents in 2020.
“There’s more males that are seen as independents than females so it’s a natural alignment for Trump to do better with these independents and that’s what we’re seeing in these polls,” Kimball said.
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The other big race in New Hampshire, the race to be governor, is also very close.
Former Republican Attorney General Kelly Ayotte holds a 3 point lead over Democrat and former Manchester mayor Joyce Craig, 46 to 43 percent. Four percent of voters support Libertarian Stephen Villee. Seven percent remain undecided.
“For Kelly Ayotte, having that lead at this point she’s going to try to run out the clock. Joyce Craig is going to have to make some game changer, maybe bring Harris in to try to ramp up some more excitement in the race because Harris is leading at the top of the ticket maybe she can pull her over the finish line.”
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A Bay State man who was trapped in his vehicle after crashing into a toll plaza was rescued by a trooper who’s on New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s security detail, according to police.
The governor also helped at the chaotic scene, police said, as the group helped the seriously injured 51-year-old man from Massachusetts at the Bedford Toll Plaza on the F.E. Everett Turnpike.
The state trooper assigned to the governor’s security detail helped pull the driver from his burning vehicle. The driver has been identified as Yevgeny Mirman.
At 11:55 a.m. on Tuesday, troopers assigned to the Troop B barracks responded to the single-vehicle crash involving a 2026 Lucid Gravity that struck the toll plaza. 911 callers said the vehicle had caught fire, and someone in the vehicle appeared to be trapped.
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While units were responding, a veteran trooper assigned to Ayotte’s security detail came upon the crash, saw that the vehicle was actively on fire, and spotted the driver inside the car.
The trooper then pulled the driver from the burning car through a window. Ayotte, along with other witnesses at the scene, provided assistance to the trooper.
Mirman was transported by ambulance to an area hospital with serious injuries. The name of the trooper is being withheld due to the nature of their position.
“Certainly, their actions were heroic in what they did,” Colonel Mark B. Hall said in a statement. “Without hesitation, they put themselves in danger to render aid to someone who was in need of it.”
Troop B was assisted by members of the New Hampshire Department of Transportation, Bedford Fire Department, Litchfield Fire Rescue and Merrimack Fire Rescue.
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No charges were immediately filed. However, all aspects of the crash remained under investigation.
Anyone with information that may help the ongoing investigation was asked to contact Trooper Nathan Belanger at Nathan.R.Belanger@dos.nh.gov.
If you use your cell phone while driving, you may want to think twice — unless you’re willing to pay twice as much.
A bipartisan bill, backed by state law enforcement, would institute higher fines for drivers who use handheld devices behind the wheel. In some cases, motorists could lose their licenses for a month or more.
Sen. Donovan Fenton, a Democrat from Keene who serves on Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s Highway Safety Task Force, pointed to state crash data as reason for the change proposed in his Senate Bill 649
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The number of traffic deaths in New Hampshire has crept up over the past few years. In 2023, there were 127 fatalities, at least six of which stemmed from distracted driving, Fenton said.
“Distracted driving is becoming more pronounced, more dangerous and more deadly,” he said at a public hearing last week. “The current penalties are not enough to change behavior, particularly with repeat offenses.”
There were 133 traffic deaths in 2024 and 138 in 2025, according to the Office of Highway Safety. In 2026 so far, thirteen people have died in car crashes.
Fenton’s bill would increase the amount someone has to pay for violating the prohibition on cell phone use while driving. First-time offenders would pay $250 instead of the current $100, and on the second violation in two years, the offender would pay $500. For the third offense in two years, they would pay $750 and lose their license for 30 days. All those penalties could increase if cell phone use behind the wheel is found to be a contributing factor in a car crash.
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Current law allows hands-free operation of a cell phone via Bluetooth but prohibits handheld device use. The state collected more than $568,000 in related fines and penalty assessments in the most recent fiscal year.
Distracted driving was a contributing factor in 4,520 of the state’s nearly 28,000 non-fatal crashes in 2023, according to the Department of Safety. That’s a little over 16%, though a report from the task force said officials suspect distracted driving is difficult to track and underreported in more serious collisions. Cell phones are a common culprit in distracted driving.
Ayotte’s task force has highlighted other policies that it says would increase public safety, including doubling the license suspension period for refusing a breathalyzer test.
In the first 10 weeks of 2026, three-quarters of the people arrested for impaired driving in New Hampshire refused to take a breath alcohol test, Ayotte said in a recent press release. The governor has waged a public campaign for the proposed law, Senate Bill 260, which she says would disincentivize drivers from refusing the test.
What’s next: Senate Bill 649 breezed through the Senate earlier this year. The House of Representatives is set to vote on it in the coming weeks after a committee recommended its passage almost unanimously.
