Republicans haven’t won New Hampshire in a presidential election in decades. However, as President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance rocked the Democratic Party, political strategists say there’s an opening for former President Donald Trump to flip the state this November. 

Political science experts are pointing to two polls indicating Biden has cause for concern in a state that typically has Democratic presidential candidates’ backs. 

A poll conducted after the debate by New Hampshire’s Saint Anselm College Survey Center shows Trump leading Biden by 2 points in the Granite State.  

Last week’s poll follows a a late May survey conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, which gave Biden only a single-digit edge. 

That’s a drop from 2020 when Biden handily won New Hampshire with a 7% lead. 

“I do think we are now in a battleground,” Neil Levesque, executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, told Fox News.

The Trump campaign has jumped for the jugular. 

“Joe Biden abandoned New Hampshire when he canned our first in the nation primary, and his policies have given our state more inflation, record-high energy bills, an increasingly unaffordable housing market, and an immigration crisis at our northern Canadian border,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told the Washington Examiner.

She said Biden’s set to “[lose] the Granite State and President Trump is poised to flip it red for the first time in more than twenty years.”

New England College president Wayne Lesperance, a veteran New Hampshire-based political science professor, agreed, telling Fox News that his state “is in play.”

“Biden’s performance at the most recent debate has pushed Democrats to question his ability to campaign, win and govern. Recent polls in New Hampshire point to continued rock-solid support by Republicans for Trump. Democratic support seems to be faltering with some looking at independent candidates,” Lesperance said. “As long as questions remain about Biden’s ability to go forward, the President will continue to bleed support, putting the Granite State in play.”

While New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman Christopher Ager told the Washington Examiner that New Hampshire is “definitely a battleground state after the debate — you can feel the momentum shifting in favor of President Trump,” Republicans have their work cut out for them. With wins in every presidential race in New Hampshire since before 9/11, Democrats hold a significant infrastructural advantage over the GOP. The Biden campaign has 14 offices across the state. The Trump campaign has only one field office. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Meanwhile, Levesque warns that in New Hampshire, “the good news for Biden is he’s weak with the people who self-describe as very liberal. Just 67% support. That means, in the end, most likely many of those people are going to vote for Biden even if they don’t want to admit it right now.”

New Hampshire voters are famously independent. As 2023 came to a close, Republican Jay Ruais successfully challenged four-term Democratic Mayor Joyce Craig in Manchester, flipping the city red for the first time in years, and proving neither party can afford to take votes for granted in the Granite State

Every other week on NHPR, we like to highlight a local non-profit that’s providing a great service for the Granite State. On this week’s episode of Give Back New Hampshire, our focus is on Assistance Canine Training Services.

Founded in 2007, Assistance Canine Training Services trains service dogs for people with mobility disabilities and facility dogs for professionals using animal assisted therapy.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Kathy Metz: I’m Kathy Metz, director of operations here at Assistance Canine Training Services.

Kelly Brown: I’m Kelly Brown. I hold the role of executive director of Assistance Canine Training Services, but I’m also a volunteer puppy raiser and a client. I have one of our facility dogs.

Kathy Metz: Our mission is to raise, train and place service and facility dogs. So our service dogs are for mobility, people who have challenges walking, many of whom are in wheelchairs or use scooters. And also our facility dogs go with professionals who utilize them in animal assisted therapy – teachers, therapists, occupational therapists, counselors, anyone who can utilize a dog in a therapeutic way for their patients or those they serve.

Kelly Brown: I speak more to the facility dog front. Our service dogs are wonderful and they work with one person. They provide a service or multiple services for a person in need. The facility dogs are just a little bit different in that they work with an able bodied human being. We have several dogs at different hospitals, people who are going through cancer treatments. They go in for their cancer treatment and there’s a dog there just to provide comfort and support while they’re there. As a schoolteacher, I have one in my general education classroom, and the dog is there all the time. He’s there every day.

Kathy Metz: Most of our puppies come to us at eight weeks old. Whether they come from a breeder or another organization, starting from the time they’re born, they get what we call enrichment, constant handling, constant exposure to different stimulus, different sounds, everything that get them comfortable with their world and make sure that they’re ready to start working and start training.

Connie: Hi, my name is Connie and my husband, Mike and I are volunteers with the ACTS organization here locally, and we have raised one of the dogs for the organization. His name is Hickory. We had him a total of about two and a half years. So Hickory is no longer with us. He’s been placed. And so now we help out as an auntie and uncle.

Mike: Hickory was our first dog when we moved up here from Pennsylvania a couple of years ago. We saw in the newspaper that ACTS had a nice article, and they were looking for puppy raisers and said, yeah, maybe we might make good puppy raisers. From my perspective, the most rewarding part is knowing what the dog is doing for an individual.

Connie: It’s a lot of fun to raise the dogs. A lot of people ask us, isn’t it difficult to let the dog go, especially when you’ve had them for a couple of years? And it is. And we went into this realizing that we had a job to do. And in our case, Hickory had a job to do. And I say if we both did our job correctly or all three of us, then the magic happens. And that’s exactly what happened with Hickory.

Robin Crocker: I’m Robin Crocker, I’m board chair, and I’m formerly the director of canine development, retired from that position. I still do a lot of work advising and working with training of the dogs. The people who work with the dogs are so dedicated, and the clients are so amazing, and the work that the dogs do with the client is just heartwarming. And I can’t step away. I just keep coming back.

PIERMONT, N.H. (WHDH) – A 58-year-old man died Friday after the canoe he was in capsized on Lake Tarleton in Piermont, N.H., police said.

At around 9:28 a.m., police responded to a reported drowning at the lake, according to the New Hampshire State Police. Two men were fishing on Lake Tarleton when their canoe capsized and they both fell into the water, police said.

While trying to stay afloat and gather their lost fishing gear, one man noticed the other was face down in the water, police said. He called for nearby witnesses to help, and they responded by boat.

Emergency crews attempted to revive the man who was unresponsive, but he was pronounced dead, police said. He was identified as Michael A. Johnson of Bedford, N.H.

The men were not wearing lifejackets at the time, although they had them in the canoe with them, police said.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact State Police Marine Patrol Sergeant Seth Alie at 603-227-2117 or Seth.P.Alie@DOS.NH.gov.

(Copyright (c) 2024 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)