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SHOCK POLL: Trump Tied With Biden in Blue New Hampshire – NH Journal

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SHOCK POLL: Trump Tied With Biden in Blue New Hampshire – NH Journal


President Joe Biden in Goffstown, N.H. on March 11, 2024.

Democrats have all but owned the Granite State’s four Electoral College votes, winning seven of the past eight presidential contests – including Joe Biden’s eight-point victory over President Donald Trump in 2020.

But the latest NHJournal/Praecones Analytica poll finds Biden tied with Trump in New Hampshire, putting him at risk of becoming the first Democrat to lose the state since Al Gore in 2000.

The survey of 862 registered voters taken the week of May 15-20 found Granite Staters evenly split between Biden and Trump at 36 percent, with 14 percent backing independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and another 12 percent choosing none of these.

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Those numbers may explain why Biden is making his second Granite State stop in two months, an unusual travel pattern for a Democratic president in a competitive national election. For Biden, who rarely travels far from D.C. or his Delaware beach house, it’s particularly notable.

Biden is scheduled to appear in Nashua on Tuesday. On Monday, the Biden administration announced more than $3 million in Brownfield Grants “to rehabilitate and revitalize communities in New Hampshire,” including Nashua and Jaffrey.

“This helps to put President Biden’s visit this week into greater context, as that sound you hear is the 2024 battleground map expanding for Donald Trump, seemingly putting New Hampshire in play this fall,” said veteran New Hampshire GOP strategist Jim Merrill, who worked on the Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio presidential campaigns.

According to Praecones Analytica’s Dr. Jonathan Klingler, Biden’s struggles come from his loss of support among swing voters.

“While registered voters of both parties are largely united around their nominee, independent/undeclared voters are splitting their support in four statistically indistinguishable ways: between Biden, Trump, Kennedy, and other unnamed candidates,” Klingler said.

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“In comparison to exit polls from the 2020 presidential election, independent/undeclared voters in New Hampshire demonstrate significantly lower support for Biden, as Biden won around 60 percent of these voters in 2020, compared to around a quarter if the election were held today.”

Biden is struggling in the polls in several states Democrats have done well in for years. The latest numbers show Biden and Trump in a close race for Minnesota, which hasn’t backed a GOP presidential candidate since President Richard Nixon’s 1972 49-state landslide.

And in Nevada, which Democrats have carried in six of the past eight elections, Trump has a six-point lead in the RealClearPolitics average, outside the margin of error.

But a Democrat in danger of losing a state in the heart of deep-blue New England would be a bad sign for the incumbent.

Biden also has a Kennedy problem. The new poll shows Kennedy’s support among Democrats is nearly twice as high (11.2 percent) as among Republicans. (6.6 percent).

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RFK, Jr. first suggested a possible presidential run at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics in March, 2023. His progressive message has a large potential audience among Democratic voters who twice picked U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for the party’s presidential nominee.

Some Granite State political pros speculated that Biden’s weakness with swing or undeclared voters may be in part from his decision to dump the First in the Nation primary and his criticism of the Granite State as not diverse enough to be allowed to hold the Democrats’ first primary.

“He spent months insulting New Hampshire, and he wonders why he’s got a problem,” one Granite State Democrat and Biden supporter told NHJournal on background. “Politically active people, our party base, we understand the big picture, but the average voter thinks he was just being a jerk to us.”



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New Hampshire

Bill to outlaw using student IDs to vote clears NH Legislature

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Bill to outlaw using student IDs to vote clears NH Legislature





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New Hampshire

NH cold case solved 40 years after police found man’s skull in woods

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NH cold case solved 40 years after police found man’s skull in woods


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Investigators partnered with a nonprofit genetic genealogy analysis organization to identify the man who the remains belonged to.

Warren Kuchinsky was born in 1952 and last known to be alive in the mid-1970s. New Hampshire Department of Justice

After nearly four decades, a man whose skull was discovered in the New Hampshire woods has been identified.

Warren Kuchinsky was born in 1952 and was last known to be alive in the mid-1970s, New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella and New Hampshire State Police Colonel Mark Hall said in a statement. In 1986, his skull was found in a wooded area in the town of Bristol.

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At the time, investigators weren’t able to identify whose skull it was, according to officials. Last year, however, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner partnered with the DNA Doe Project, a nonprofit organization, to solve the case using forensic genetic genealogy techniques.

Kuchinsky’s identity was confirmed through DNA testing of a surviving family member, according to officials. There is no evidence that his death was caused by foul play, according to the statement.

Founded in 2017, the DNA Doe Project partners with law enforcement, medical examiners, and volunteer genealogists to apply investigative genealogy to John and Jane Doe cases. By analyzing DNA profiles and building family trees from publicly available genetic databases and historical records, the organization has helped solve more than 250 cases nationwide.

“We are honored to have partnered with the State of New Hampshire on this case,” DNA Doe Project Team Leader Lisa Ivany said in the statement. “Through the power of investigative genetic genealogy and the dedication of our volunteer genealogists, we were able to develop a critical lead in less than 24 hours. We truly hope that this identification brings long-awaited answers to Mr. Kuchinsky’s family.”

Initial DNA testing turned up only distant matches, so the DNA Doe Project selected the case to be worked on at a virtual retreat in May 2025, according to the organization’s case profile. Over the course of a weekend, more than 40 genealogists from the U.S., Canada, England, and Scotland collaborated virtually to work on the case.

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Within hours, the team discovered that the unidentified man had roots in New Hampshire and Quebec, according to the profile. They later zeroed in on Kuchinsky, who had attended school in Plymouth, N.H., but had no official proof of life past 1970.

“This identification reflects the power of partnership and scientific advancement,” Formella said in the statement. “The dedication of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the investigative support of the New Hampshire State Police, and the extraordinary work of the DNA Doe Project have restored a name to an individual who had been unidentified for nearly 40 years. We are grateful for their professionalism and commitment.”

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New Hampshire

New Hampshire House Advances One of The Nation’s Most Extreme Transgender Bathroom Bans

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New Hampshire House Advances One of The Nation’s Most Extreme Transgender Bathroom Bans


The proposal would fine transgender people up to $5,000 for using bathrooms aligned with their gender identity.

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Bathroom bans targeting transgender people have been spreading rapidly across the United States. In previous years, adult bathroom bans in public buildings were limited to a handful of states with extreme laws. This year, they have become one of the primary vehicles for anti-trans legislation nationwide. Kansas was the first to act, passing a bathroom bounty hunter system and invalidating transgender people’s IDs. Idaho and Missouri began advancing their own bills. Now, the New Hampshire House of Representatives has passed its own version — one of the most extreme in the United States, which states that a trans person using the bathroom of their gender identity is a crime under the state civil rights act, violations of which carries hefty penalties. The bill passed 181-164 on Wednesday night, just weeks after Governor Kelly Ayotte vetoed a separate bathroom ban. Republicans are now sending her something far more aggressive — raising the question of whether they are trying to move the goalposts or simply daring her to veto again.

“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, with the exception of RSA 21:3, RSA 21:54, and paragraph II below, all multi-user facilities, including bathrooms, restrooms, and locker rooms located in buildings owned, leased, or operated by any municipality shall be used based on the individual’s biological sex,” reads the new bill. This prohibition is expansive: it applies to parks, rest stops, airports, civic buildings, and more, and could leave transgender people struggling to find a public place to use the restroom across the state.

The bill contains a novel enforcement mechanism not seen in any other state. It declares that a transgender person “asserting” that their gender identity allows them to use the bathroom is against the law under the state civil rights act, turning civil rights protections that were meant to be protective of transgender people into a weapon against them. “It shall be unlawful for any person to assert that their gender identity is a sex other than that defined in RSA 21:3 for the purposes of accessing places or services restricted on the basis of sex,” reads the bill. Such violations could result in fines of up to $5,000 per incident and even jail time if a person violates a resulting court injunction by continuing to use the restroom.

The bill also contains provisions for private businesses. It permits any owner or operator of a “place of public accommodation” — a category that under New Hampshire law includes hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, bars, and concert venues — to restrict bathrooms by assigned sex at birth. The bill then immunizes those businesses from discrimination claims: “Adoption or enforcement of a policy pursuant to this section shall not be deemed discrimination under RSA 354-A or any other state law,” it reads.

A separate bill, HB 1217, also passed on Wednesday. That bill permits governmental buildings and businesses to classify bathrooms and locker rooms by assigned sex at birth — similar to the bathroom bans Ayotte has already vetoed. It passed by an even wider margin, 187-163. It contains no enforcement mechanism, but rather, states that bathroom bans and sports bans are not discriminatory towards transgender people under New Hampshire law.

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The bills are part of a larger movement towards bathroom bans for transgender people. Just last month, Kansas passed a bathroom ban that allows every citizen in the state to become a bounty hunter, where reporting transgender people in bathrooms can net them $1,000 per trans person caught. This law also invalidated trans people’s drivers licenses in the state. Meanwhile, Idaho and Missouri are both advancing extreme anti-trans bathroom bans of their own, with Idaho’s ban even applying to private businesses, making it against the law for a private business to allow a trans person to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity.

The bills are substantially more extreme than the one vetoed by Governor Ayotte just weeks ago. In a veto statement of a bathroom ban last month, Ayotte stated, “I believe there are important and legitimate privacy and safety concerns raised by biological males using places such as female locker rooms and being placed in female correctional facilities… At the same time, I see that House Bill 148 is overly broad and impractical to enforce, potentially creating an exclusionary environment for some of our citizens.”

It remains unclear why Republicans are pushing an even more extreme version of a bill their own governor has already vetoed three times. The bill still needs to pass the New Hampshire Senate and be signed by Ayotte to become law. One possibility is that the more extreme HB 1442 is designed as cover for HB 1217 — making that bill appear moderate by comparison and improving its chances of earning a signature. Another is that Republicans believe they can pressure Ayotte into signing, or are simply laying the groundwork for an override attempt down the line. Regardless, HB 1442 is one of the most extreme bathroom bans moving through any state legislature in the country, and transgender people across New England will be watching closely as it advances to the Senate.

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