New Hampshire

To see how Kamala Harris has changed the presidential race, look to New Hampshire

Published

1 year ago

August 4, 2024

To see how Kamala Harris has changed the presidential race, look to New Hampshire

A campaign sign with President Joe Biden’s name cut out stands in Northwood, N.H., on July 21. Homeowner Tom Chase, 79, said he removed Biden’s name last week and was relieved and delighted that the president withdrew from his 2024 campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.Holly Ramer/The Associated Press

If you’re looking for a place to gauge the effect the ascendancy of Kamala Harris has had on the American presidential election, come to Carroll County, the only county in all of New England that arch-conservative Barry Goldwater carried as the Republican presidential nominee 60 years ago.

Here, and throughout the rest of New Hampshire, the electorate is especially sensitive to the political winds because of a heritage of more than a century of vital presidential primaries, and the Harris impact is vivid, telling, and potentially consequential.

Only weeks ago, this state – where the mountains stretch to the sky and the air is cool even when the rest of the country bakes – was considered in play for Donald Trump. Now, it seems to have settled back into the Democratic column.

Two months ago, when Joe Biden was still the presumptive Democratic nominee, the St. Anselm College Survey Center poll showed the President, who as recently as December held a 10-point edge over Mr. Trump in New Hampshire, running two percentage points behind. The latest poll shows Ms. Harris ahead by six points.

A similar movement is evident in the University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll, in which Mr. Biden held a tottering three-point lead in the state. Now, Ms. Harris holds a six-point lead over Mr. Trump in that poll – a phenomenon that, while not always as dramatic as it is in New Hampshire, is emerging in other states.

“For weeks, we were in despair here,” said David Van Note, a New Hampshire resident who has been active in national Democratic politics for decades. “Then all of a sudden Biden is out, Harris is in, and there is a feeling of great hope.”

That despair has deep roots. New Hampshire once was so Republican that the GOP prevailed there in 28 of the 34 presidential elections from 1856 to 1988, with Mr. Goldwater winning Carroll County in 1964 by 10 percentage points, though he lost the state to Lyndon Johnson.

In recent years, New Hampshire has been in full rebellion against the view of its most famous literary figure, Robert Frost, who in a poem published in 1920 – the year Republican presidential nominee Warren Harding carried the state in a landslide – wrote, “Yankees are what they always were.”

“This state was Republican, and reliably so,” said Ellen Fitzpatrick, a University of New Hampshire historian. “In the old days, New Hampshire and Vermont were the Republican counters to the Democratic dominance of Massachusetts. But that is a long-gone phenomenon.”

Recently, the Granite State has become more Democratic. The party has won here in seven of the past eight presidential elections.

New Hampshire veered into the GOP column in that period only in 2000, when George W. Bush took its four electoral votes largely because Green Party candidate Ralph Nader captured four per cent of the vote. Mr. Nader’s supporters would almost certainly otherwise have voted for vice-president Al Gore, delivering the state and the presidency to him, and making the spectacle of recounts in Florida meaningless.

Mr. Biden won New Hampshire by seven percentage points in 2020, the largest margin since Barack Obama (with Mr. Biden as his running mate) won the state in 2008.

Donald Trump took New Hampshire’s Republican primary in January, defeating Nikki Haley by 11 points. Ms. Haley, a former South Carolina governor, had calculated that the state’s voters were her best chance of stopping the former president’s march to his third presidential nomination. Her “NH for NH” buttons were everywhere, but the votes were for Mr. Trump.

That likely will not help Mr. Trump in November.

“Trump has a core here that he will get regardless, but he is not going to pick up any voters that already aren’t for him,” said Thomas Rath, a former state attorney-general who has been involved in Republican presidential politics for a half-century.

“Everything changed the day Biden got out. With Biden gone, Trump won’t pick up even three more people than he already has.”

This is a state that is, both figuratively and literally, independent.

Independents – voters not affiliated with any political party – count for 37 per cent of the vote, more than the figure registered by either the Democrats or the Republicans. The GOP holds a state-government trifecta: the governor’s chair and both chambers of the state legislature. But the Democrats control the state’s two seats in the U.S. Senate and its two seats in the House of Representatives.

Ms. Harris, who is Black and South Asian, may be able to shore up support among Black voters in states such as Georgia, who polls showed were less enthusiastic about Mr. Biden in this election than they had been in the past. But in New Hampshire, where Black, Indigenous and other racialized people make up only about 10 per cent of the population, a more important factor may be gender.

This state is comfortable with female leaders. Both of its senators, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, are women and so is one of its House members, Annie Kuster. As both parties will likely nominate women for the fall gubernatorial election, the next governor probably will be a woman as well.

“We are back to 2020,” said Andrew Smith, who runs the University of New Hampshire poll.

“Democrats lost their enthusiasm for Biden, and a lot of them felt they weren’t motivated enough even to show up to vote. Now, they have someone they feel they can vote for – and now we see it’s the Republicans who are losing their enthusiasm.”

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New Hampshire

New Hampshire 6-year-old tests positive for cocaine, cannabis; mother faces multiple charges

Published

4 hours ago

December 12, 2025

Press Room

New Hampshire 6-year-old tests positive for cocaine, cannabis; mother faces multiple charges

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A New Hampshire woman was charged with child endangerment and witness tampering after her daughter ingested a THC gummy and later tested positive for cannabinoids and cocaine, according to officials.

The incident prompted a police investigation after the state Division for Children, Youth and Families notified the Nashua Police Department Nov. 3.

According to a release shared by Nashua Police Department, detectives learned the 6-year-old had been hospitalized following the ingestion and that her mother, Paige Goulet, allegedly told a witness not to cooperate with investigators.

DRUG-LACED CANDY DISGUISED AS KIDS’ TREATS FUELS NEW HALLOWEEN SAFETY WARNING FOR PARENTS: POLICE

The Nashua Police Department took custody of Goulet and formally charged her. (Nashua Police Department)

“While at the hospital, the juvenile victim tested positive for the illegal drugs, cannabinoids, and cocaine,” the release said.

“Detectives learned that Goulet had told a witness not to cooperate with the police investigation, and detectives determined that Goulet had neglected her duty to care for her juvenile daughter.”

Goulet, 30, was arrested Monday by Meredith police on a felony warrant for tampering with witnesses involved in the Nashua police investigation.

GUATEMALAN NATIONAL FREED WITHOUT BAIL IN THC GUMMIES CASE THAT SENT 12 MIDDLE-SCHOOLERS TO THE HOSPITAL

Nashua police determined Goulet had neglected her duty to care for her daughter. (Wang Zhao/AFP/GettyImages)

She was taken into custody by Nashua police and formally charged.

She is facing charges of tampering with witnesses and endangering the welfare of a child, according to the release.

FLORIDA PARENTS ARRESTED AFTER 4-YEAR-OLD TWINS ALLEGEDLY SHOT THEMSELVES

Paige Goulet was taken to the Nashua Police Department and charged with witness tampering and child endangerment after her daughter’s THC gummy ingestion. (Google Maps)

Goulet was released on $300 cash bail and is scheduled to be arraigned in Nashua District Court Jan. 7.

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Fox News Digital has reached out to the Meredith and Nashua police departments for comment.

Emma Bussey is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital. Before joining Fox, she worked at The Telegraph with the U.S. overnight team, across desks including foreign, politics, news, sport and culture.

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New Hampshire

It’s been 50 years since turkeys were reintroduced to N.H. A survey will check on the population. – The Boston Globe

Published

16 hours ago

December 11, 2025

Press Room

It’s been 50 years since turkeys were reintroduced to N.H. A survey will check on the population. – The Boston Globe

In recent years, the survey has helped identify about 910 flocks on average, with about 16,488 birds reported per year.

Those numbers can fluctuate based on winter conditions. The birds are more likely to congregate at backyard feeders during winters with heavy snow and limited food, driving up reported numbers. On the other hand, when birds can easily get the food they need in the wild, reports tend to decrease, according to Daniel Ellingwood, a wildlife biologist and turkey project leader at New Hampshire Fish and Game.

He said the state has been conducting the survey for about 20 years. This year, the survey started in December and will run through March.

Right now, the turkey population in New Hampshire includes about 48,000 birds, Fish and Game estimated.

But just over 50 years ago, there weren’t any turkeys in the state at all. In fact, Ellingwood said, turkeys had been absent from New Hampshire’s landscape for about 125 years — starting in the 1850s and lasting until a successful reintroduction effort began in 1975.

Populations were diminished to the point of disappearing because of human activities like hunting and deforestation.

Then, in 1975, the state launched a successful effort to bring the turkeys back.

“A single flock from southwest New York was captured and translocated to Walpole, New Hampshire in ’75,” Ellingwood said. “That population took hold and began to expand.”

That first flock included about 25 birds. In the following years, other flocks were relocated to New Hampshire, and the turkey population began spreading to other parts of the state.

At this point, the birds have made a remarkable recovery.

“The population is largely stable and healthy,” Ellingwood said.

This story appeared in Globe NH | Morning Report, a free newsletter focused on New Hampshire, including great coverage from the Boston Globe and links to interesting articles elsewhere. To receive it via email Monday through Friday, sign up here.

Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.

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