No one nabbed a perfect score in the Globe New Hampshire 2024 election prediction challenge, though several soothsayers came fairly close.
Ninety readers locked in their best guesses prior to Election Day, predicting who would win key races, which party would win a majority of seats in each New Hampshire legislative chamber, and whether voters would approve a constitutional amendment.
The two prognosticators who scored highest, Lee Hurst of Hampton and Stephen Cabral of Manchester, each earned 36 of 41 possible points. They accurately predicted that Kamala D. Harris would win New Hampshire’s four Electoral College votes by 2-4 percentage points and Kelly Ayotte would win the gubernatorial race by at least 25,000 votes.
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Hurst gets first-place bragging rights for having locked in answers about 12 hours earlier than Cabral did, on Oct. 7, when we first launched the challenge.
The imperfections in Hurst’s and Cabral’s predictions pertain to the New Hampshire House and Senate. Although they both said Republicans would win the most seats in each chamber, they underestimated how many. The GOP emerged with a 222-178 majority in the House and a 16-8 majority in the Senate, pending recounts in a handful of state representative races.
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Third place in the Globe New Hampshire challenge goes to Stephen DeFilippo of Manchester, who scored 33 points. DeFilippo correctly predicted the Harris and Ayotte victories but expected a narrower margin in the gubernatorial race.
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In fourth and fifth, we have Sandra B. Allen of Newmarket and Tom Boucher of Bedford, who scored 32 points. Allen locked in answers on Oct. 8, two days before Boucher.
These top scorers will receive Globe New Hampshire swag as a trophy. 🏆
A few other takeaways from the predictions:
Only four readers predicted Republicans would win 215 seats or more in the New Hampshire House.
Just three readers said the GOP would expand its current 14-10 majority in the Senate, and zero predicted the 16-8 result.
The individual races that tripped up most readers were in Senate Districts 11 and 18, where Democratic incumbents lost to Republican challengers.
This story first appeared in Globe NH | Morning Report, our free newsletter focused on the news you need to know about New Hampshire, including great coverage from the Boston Globe and links to interesting articles from other places. If you’d like to receive it via e-mail Monday through Friday, you can sign up here.
Steven Porter can be reached at steven.porter@globe.com. Follow him @reporterporter.
Vietnam Veteran Arthur Mitts received a Quilt of Valor from St. Joseph’s Hospital in Nashua as a gesture of gratitude for his service on Veterans Day. This is the second year the hospital handed out a Quilt of Valor, a civilian award designed to thank service members and veterans touched by war.
“We hope that today’s Quilt of Valor presentation serves as a small token of gratitude and a symbol of warmth and comfort we wish had been extended to you by our nation when you first returned home,” said Patrick McCarty, who is also a veteran and works at the hospital.
While receiving the quilt, Mitts wore a t-shirt honoring the lives of those lost during the Vietnam War.
Mitts was drafted in 1969 at the age of 19 and served in the Army. He says he’s proud to be a Vietnam veteran, even though he was treated poorly and struggled with his health after returning to the U.S.
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Donna Swenson from the New Hampshire chapter of Quilts of Valor presented the quilt, reflecting on the difficulties many veterans like Mitts face after they return from tours of duty.
“We believe that as we sew, love, caring and gratitude flow from our hearts through our hands and into those quilts,” she said.
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