New Hampshire

New Hampshire hasn’t backed a Republican for president since 2000. Biden’s debate boosted GOP confidence that will change. – The Boston Globe

Published

1 year ago

July 7, 2024

New Hampshire hasn’t backed a Republican for president since 2000. Biden’s debate boosted GOP confidence that will change. – The Boston Globe

“If it wasn’t already, it sure came into play last Thursday,” said Jon McHenry, a national GOP pollster who grew up in New Hampshire, referring to the first general-election debate between Biden and Trump.

Republican “reach states,” including New Hampshire, “became more competitive after that performance,” McHenry said. A year ago, the state “absolutely” looked less competitive for Republicans, he said, “whereas now, you go, ‘Hey, that’s on the table.’”

The fresh attention on New Hampshire comes as both campaigns seek to expand the map of key battleground states beyond the six that proved decisive in 2020. Immediately after last week’s debate, for example, Biden campaigned in North Carolina, while Trump traveled to Virginia, each candidate wooing a state he lost four years ago.

New Hampshire has long been a purple state; it currently has an-all Democratic congressional delegation, a Republican governor, and an almost even party split in its state House of Representatives. But not since George W. Bush in 2000 has the state backed a Republican for president — a streak that gives Democrats hope, even as Biden shows increasing signs of weakness.

“We are confident Granite Staters will come together this November to reelect President Biden and reject Donald Trump, just as we did in 2016 and 2020,” said Marisa Nahem, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign in New Hampshire.

Biden carried New Hampshire by seven percentage points in 2020, but his campaign still considers it a battleground state this time around. In 2016, when Hillary Clinton carried New Hampshire, the margin was far closer; she bested Trump by less than one percentage point.

Donald Trump gestured to the crowd during a campaign rally in Manchester, N.H., in January.DOUG MILLS/NYT

This year’s election could more closely resemble 2016 than 2020, analysts said. And while New Hampshire is just one small state, its competitiveness forewarns of far larger consequences for Democrats.

“If New Hampshire is in play, then Donald Trump is going to win” the general election, predicted Fergus Cullen, a former New Hampshire GOP chair who opposes Trump. If Trump manages to even compete in New Hampshire, he reasoned, the former president will carry the bigger swing states with more electoral votes.

“All that’s happened in the last six months is Trump’s path has expanded and Biden’s path to winning has become more and more narrow, much more threading the needle,” Cullen added. “He’s clearly been on defense in states that should be solidly in the Democratic column. The trends are all moving in one direction.”

As national Democrats openly discuss the possibility of replacing the president on the ticket this fall, some Biden backers in New Hampshire have been quick to tamp down on such speculation. And supporters dismiss the recent poll showing Trump ahead of Biden, noting that the survey has been proven wrong before and months of campaigning remain before Election Day.

Sure, New Hampshire looks competitive — but that’s nothing new this year, said Kathy Sullivan, the former state Democratic chair who led this year’s write-in effort for Biden in the primary. Biden snubbed New Hampshire by skipping its Jan. 23 primary this year, as national Democrats sought to shift the early contests to states with more diverse populations. But he decisively won the primary as a write-in candidate despite not formally campaigning in the state himself.

Biden has made two trips to New Hampshire since he skipped the primary, attempting to reset his relationship with the state. His campaign and local Democrats have 14 coordinated campaign offices.

Sullivan said Republicans are “getting ahead of themselves” in arguing that Biden’s debate performance will sink him in the state. Sullivan said based on conversations she’s had with canvassers promoting Biden door to door with New Hampshire voters, she is not convinced that the race has tightened since the debate.

“I feel nervous about every election,” Sullivan said. “Fingers crossed, say a Hail Mary, or whatever prayer you might say, or meditate. It’s just going to be like every other election.”

Despite Republican bluster about recapturing the state in a presidential election, Trump has not campaigned in New Hampshire since he won its first-in-the-nation primary in January. A surrogate, his onetime GOP primary rival North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, spoke at a fund-raising dinner in Keene in April.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley told reporters in Arizona this week that as the Trump campaign worked to expand the map of battleground states, “we’ve now started to engage in Minnesota and in Virginia and in New Hampshire.”

But the RNC would not say what that effort entails. Trump campaign senior advisor and RNC chief of staff Chris LaCivita said in a statement that he did not feel “obligated … to discuss the specifics of our strategy, timing and tactics with members of the news media.” But New Hampshire GOP Chairman Chris Ager told the Globe that last month, even before the June 27 debate, the Trump campaign made a “substantial” contribution to the state party to help Republicans on the ground boost the former president’s campaign.

“It’s an indicator when the campaign starts giving money directly to the state party,” Ager said. “It’s a good sign for us that yes, we are a battleground state.”

Ager declined to say how much the Trump campaign had provided, but called it a “significant investment” — the first large chunk of money the party has received directly, and he is expecting more to come.

Before the debate, Ager said he knew New Hampshire would be close, but he wasn’t sure Trump could win it. Now, he said, he is “convinced.”

“I’m usually pretty cautious,” Ager said, “and now I’m like, ‘Oh boy.’”

Emma Platoff can be reached at emma.platoff@globe.com. Follow her @emmaplatoff.

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New Hampshire

Canterbury NH library saves big with insulation upgrade – Concord Monitor

Published

6 hours ago

November 23, 2025

Press Room

Canterbury NH library saves big with insulation upgrade – Concord Monitor

Rachel Baker is going to have to think of a new present for library staffers this holiday season.

“For Christmas I would always buy them sweaters… just to keep them warm,” said Baker, who has worked at Canterbury’s town library for 20 years, the last five as its director.

Holiday sweaters, ugly or otherwise, won’t be needed this year because the building, a converted cinderblock fire station, now has something that most buildings take for granted: insulation.

“When I say it had zero insulation, I mean zero. I have pictures!” said Baker. “You could see Mt. Kearsarge through my roof… There was no caulking around my windows, none.”

Library Director Rachel Baker discusses the formerly-leaky windows at Elkins Public Library in Canterbury, NH. Credit: UNITIL / Courtesy

That problem was solved during a five-day session in April, when crews from Northeast Air Sealing of Concord crawled through the roof and otherwise gained access to fill leaky air spaces and, in industry parlance, tighten the building envelope.

“They did the ceiling, all the walls, around the windows. They did it without us having to move the books out — they were brilliant,” Baker said.

Elkins Public Library at 9 Center Road moved into the former fire station in 2004 as part of a town-wide municipal building project, but initial plans for radiant heating were dropped, leaving just a propane furnace. Patrons and staffers have shivered through winters ever since.

The roughly $20,000 cost of the improvements was mostly covered by NH Saves, a program funded by New Hampshire utilities using ratepayer money that supports a variety of energy efficiency work, with the help of a $7,210 energy efficiency incentive from Unitil. Baker said town resident Tom Flaco did the heavy lifting on getting the assistance.

The improvements are expected to lower the library’s annual energy usage by approximately 1,515 gallons of propane, saving around $4,500 a year.

The arrival of cold weather means people will be able enjoy the library without having to put on fingerless gloves and break out the space heaters, but even during the heat of summer, Baker noticed an unexpected improvement.

“Acoustics was the biggest difference,” she said. The uninsulated cinderblock building had allowed outdoor noise to intrude even as it reflected indoor noise. “We didn’t notice that until it was gone — it was so much quieter.”

The director has an extra reason to enjoy the upgrade because she grew up in Canterbury where her father, Dale Caswell, was fire chief.

“I knew this building intimately. I spent my childhood in this firehouse,” she said. Seeing it take on a new life has been a treat: “It’s a gorgeous space. We have so much room here.”

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New Hampshire

Lawsuit challenges New Hampshire’s voter ID requirements – Valley News

Published

24 hours ago

November 22, 2025

Press Room

Lawsuit challenges New Hampshire’s voter ID requirements – Valley News

Soon after Joshua Bogden attempted to register to vote on the day of Portsmouth’s municipal elections Nov. 11, he faced a tough decision.

Bogden had not brought along a passport or birth certificate to prove his citizenship. And though he had previously been registered and voted in Wilton, poll workers told Bogden he needed to leave and return with one of those physical documents.

Bogden could either drive to city hall and request a same-day copy of his birth certificate, or rush home and find his own copy. But he had only hours until the polls closed, and only minutes before Portsmouth stopped its birth certificate service at 4:30.

In the end, Bogden decided to drive home and chance that he could find the certificate, he said during a press conference Thursday. He did find it and was able to vote. But the hassle he faced is at the center of arguments by some that recent changes to New Hampshire’s voter registration laws are too strict and will result in frustrated voters choosing not to vote.

“Luckily, I lived nearby,” he said. “But if there had been any more sort of traffic or anything in my personal life — going home to pick up the kids, trying to do this after work — there’s no way I would have been able to come back and vote successfully.”

Since a new law took effect November 2024, New Hampshire voters are required to produce hard copies of citizenship documents the first time they register to vote in the state. The law eliminated the previous option for voters registering on Election Day to sign a “qualified voter affidavit” that allowed them to vote without proving citizenship by testifying on penalty of perjury that they were a U.S. citizen.

Republican supporters of the law, House Bill 1569, say the new requirements are reasonable and necessary to close loopholes that could allow non-citizens to vote, and that voters should prepare by obtaining their citizenship documents in advance

Lawmakers also passed a follow-up law in 2025, House Bill 464, that allows local election officials to access the Statewide Voter Registration System, New Hampshire Vital Records, and Division of Motor Vehicle databases in order to attempt to corroborate a resident’s citizenship.

But a number of voting rights groups are suing in federal court to block the law, arguing it creates an unconstitutional burden and that it will disenfranchise eligible voters, especially those for whom obtaining a passport or birth certificate could be difficult.

In the meantime, the October and November municipal elections have offered a fresh look into how the new law might affect voting in practice.

According to a tally by the New Hampshire Campaign for Voting Rights, 123 voters were turned away from the polls due to a lack of documents. Combined with the 121 residents the group reported were turned away for the same reason during town meetings in spring, at least 244 people were turned away in 2025, the group says.

Voting rights advocates and Democrats argue those tallies are a cautionary tale for the state ahead of the September 2026 state primaries and the November 2026 midterm federal election. Many more people are likely to vote in those elections, and many more who don’t bring along their citizenship documentation could be turned away, advocates warn.

They hope U.S. District Court Judge Samantha Elliott, who is presiding over the lawsuit, will issue an injunction ahead of the midterms. A full evidentiary trial in that case is expected in February.

At Thursday’s press conference, advocates attempted to show the difficulty posed by the new documentary requirements, which election law experts have called the strictest in the country.

In addition to Bogden, Brayden Rumsey, a Dover voter, said he had to drive home to retrieve his passport in order to vote Nov. 11. Rumsey was not aware of the new citizenship documentation requirements; he had assumed that showing a REAL ID driver’s license would suffice, since to obtain it he had been required to show his passport.

“I have my own car. I have my own way of getting there. I don’t have any kids to take care of. I have access to a passport and access to my birth certificate that I could easily get,” he said. “I know a lot of people don’t have that privilege like I do.”

And Michael Blanchette, who recently moved from Concord to Manchester, said he had called the city ahead of the Nov. 11 election to get confirmation of his citizenship using his previous registration and presence on the voter database. But despite that confirmation, Blanchette said he was still asked for citizenship documentation at the Manchester Ward 7 polls, and had to wait an hour for multiple election workers and city officials to clear him to vote.

“(I knew) if I went back home and took my pain meds, I was not coming back out,” he said. “And it was now or never. So I stuck through it. I didn’t realize it would just drag on.”

Linnea Hartsuyker, a supervisor of the checklist in Dover’s Ward 5, said she had seen at least one prospective voter leave and not return once learning of the requirements.

Hartsuyker said the 2025 law providing election workers access to the state voter file proved helpful, allowing her to verify at least those voters who had already registered. That remedy would not have worked for new voters who moved from out of state, she said.

“Last year at the general (election) I and my team registered 50 people per hour for 12 hours,” she said. “That’s almost one person per minute with the old system, and I am quite worried about being able to do that in the coming election, at the midterms.”

Access to those state databases might vary from polling place to polling place depending on internet availability and the amount of time and manpower available during a rush of voters, critics say. Rumsey and Blanchette said workers at their polling places did not appear to have direct access to those databases, necessitating calls to city hall officials.

It is not clear how the apparent tallies of voters turned away from voting might affect the trial in next year’s lawsuit.

In a July 29 ruling, Elliott ruled that some of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed in 2024, lacked standing because their experiences did not directly demonstrate a potential unconstitutional barrier to voting. But she granted standing to other plaintiffs, such as the Coalition for Open Democracy, the League of Women Voters of New Hampshire, the Forward Foundation, and three plaintiffs who were minors but planned to register to vote when they turned 18 and said the need to procure documentation was a burden.

The Attorney General’s Office has defended the law and said the constitutional challenges are not substantiated. In a Nov. 7 memorandum asking Elliott to dismiss the case, Assistant Attorney General Michael DeGrandis argued that the law struck a balance between allowing every eligible person to vote and safeguarding the process from fraud.

“New Hampshire pairs that open access with commonsense eligibility checks so only the votes of eligible voters are counted,” DeGrandis wrote. “Striking this balance is essential to guarantee an election system that is both welcoming and vigilant in protecting the integrity of the ballot.”

And he wrote that the law does not impede the organizations suing, and that the individual plaintiffs “have not offered competent evidence of cognizable injuries.”

“It is Plaintiffs’ burden to come forward with definite, competent evidence of injury, causation, and redressability, but they have not,” DeGrandis wrote.

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