Northeast
Trump eyes a state no Republican has carried in a quarter century amid Biden post-debate turmoil
NEWFIELDS, N.H. — It’s been 24 years since a Republican carried the swing state of New Hampshire in a presidential election.
You have to go back to then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush in 2000. Four years later, as he won re-election, then-President Bush was narrowly edged in the Granite State, kicking off a losing streak that has extended to the present day.
But in the wake of two recent polls that indicated a margin-of-error race in New Hampshire and following President Biden’s extremely rough debate performance nine days ago in his first primetime face-to-face showdown with former President Trump, Republicans are increasingly hopeful they can bring an end to the losing streak.
BIDEN FACES THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL STRETCH OF HIS POLITICAL CAREER
Former President Donald Trump speaks as he celebrates a victory in New Hampshire’s Republican presidential primary in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Jan. 23. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
“I firmly believe that New Hampshire is very much in play,” Steve Stepanek, the senior Trump adviser in the state, told Fox News.
Former longtime state party chair and former Democratic National Committee member Kathy Sullivan disagreed, spotlighting that “New Hampshire is not Trump-friendly territory” and that “there’s nothing changing the dynamic now in terms of Biden versus Trump in New Hampshire.”
BIDEN RAMPS UP SPENDING IN BID TO STEADY HIS FALTERING CAMPAIGN
Since the start of the general election rematch between Biden and Trump four months ago, much of the campaign spotlight has shined on the seven key battlegrounds that decided the 2020 election. Those states include Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada — which Biden narrowly carried four years ago — and North Carolina, which Trump won by a razor-thin margin.
Starting in May, Trump’s campaign started eyeing Minnesota and Virginia, two blue-leaning states in presidential contests, with his top advisers saying they were “clearly in play.”
Trump headlined a Minnesota GOP fundraising gala later that month, and last week, on the day after his debate with Biden, Trump held a large rally in Virginia.
Former President Trump and President Biden face off at a debate in Atlanta on June 27. (Getty Images)
The debate was a major setback for Biden, who at 81 is the oldest president in the nation’s history. His halting delivery and stumbling answers at the showdown in Atlanta sparked widespread panic in the Democratic Party and sparked a rising tide of calls from within his own party for him to step aside as its 2024 standard-bearer.
Fighting back, Biden is now aiming to show Americans that he still has the stamina and acuity to handle the toughest and most demanding job in the world and prove that he has the energy and fortitude to defeat Trump.
TOP NON-PARTISAN POLITICAL HANDICAPPER SHIFTS TWO STATES TOWARDS TRUMP
Earlier this week, well-known non-partisan political handicapper Sabato’s Crystal Ball shifted two key states towards Trump in the wake of the debate.
Michigan was shifted from “Leans Democrat” to “Toss-up” and Minnesota was moved from “Likely Democrat” to “Leans Democrat.”
In New Hampshire, a poll conducted after the debate by the Saint Anselm College Survey Center suggested that Trump was edging Biden by two points, which was within the survey’s sampling error. The poll followed a survey conducted in late May by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center which indicated Biden with a lower single-digit edge.
“I do think we are now in a battleground,” said Neil Levesque, executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. “You are likely to see states that are similar to ours that show it’s tied up or Trump has the lead.”
President Biden speaks to supporters during a visit to a campaign field office in Manchester, New Hampshire, on March 11. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
But pointing to the new poll, Levesque told Fox News that “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 England College president Wayne Lesperance, a veteran New Hampshire-based political science professor, also said that the 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 noted. “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.”
TRUMP GETS BOOST IN POST-DEBATE POLLS AFTER BIDEN’S BOTCHED PERFORMANCE
While the polls indicate a close contest in a state Biden carried by seven points over Trump four years ago, the Democrats currently hold a very large organizational advantage over the GOP when it comes to ground-game operations.
The Biden re-election team and the state Democratic coordinated campaign have 14 field offices across New Hampshire, with boots on the ground since January. Meanwhile, the Trump team and the GOP currently have one field office in addition to the campaign’s state headquarters.
“New Hampshire Democrats will continue to use our robust, grassroots campaign infrastructure to reach Granite Staters in every corner of New Hampshire to ensure we come together and re-elect President Biden and Vice President Harris in November — the stakes could not be higher,” longtime state Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley emphasized in a statement.
But Stepanek, who chaired Trump’s 2016 campaign in New Hampshire before later serving as state GOP chair, touted that “there’s an army of Trump supporters out there, and they’re all coming out.”
“It’s going to be a turnout situation, and we feel we have a very significant ground game that’s going to turnout not only all the Trump supporters but all the Republicans and independents leaning Republican in spite of all the things the Democrats have on the ground here in New Hampshire,” Stepanek predicted.
And he argued that the Democrats “have a significant enthusiasm gap that they are contending with, and we don’t have that.”
As for specifics on how the Trump campaign will build out its ground game in New Hampshire, Stepanek answered, “My game plan I can’t tell you because it’s confidential.”
Sullivan, a top Biden surrogate in New Hampshire, shot back, claiming that when it comes to ground-game operations, “Republicans always say they’re going to do something, and they never follow through.”
Sullivan pointed to the Democrats’ “incredibly strong ground game and seeing nothing on the ground from the Trump campaign.” She also spotlighted that “the issues like abortion, the Republicans are just not in the mainstream.”
“Between the ground game, the issues, the spending by the Biden campaign and the lack of any presence by the Trump campaign, I don’t see the Republicans catching up,” she predicted.
Supporters of the write-in Joe Biden effort in the New Hampshire primary stand for a photo in Concord, New Hampshire, on Jan. 19. (Fox News – Clare O’Connor)
Sullivan also highlighted that they “got a real good head start when we had the write-in Biden effort,” as she referenced the outside effort by state Democrats that boosted the president to a large victory in New Hampshire’s unsanctioned Democratic presidential primary in January, where Biden wasn’t on the ballot.
And in a state where Trump’s GOP presidential primary rival, former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, won 43% of the vote — losing to Trump by only 11 points — Sullivan noted that “the Biden campaign is going to be reaching out to moderate to conservative Republicans who understand what a danger Donald Trump is to our democracy.”
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State Treasurer Erick Russell achieved a 14% increase last year investing Connecticut’s pension fund assets, gaining roughly $8.3 billion for retirement programs for state employees, teachers and other municipal workers.
The state, which oversees nearly $69 billion in pension assets, aims for an average annual return on pension investments of 6.9%.
Expectations for bigger gains grew throughout the past year as key stock market indices surged. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, an index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges, grew by more than 13% in 2025. And the S&P 500, which follows 500 traded companies, topped 16%.
Among peer states and other entities that manage public pension funds holding more than $10 billion in assets, Connecticut’s 2025 performance ranks in the top 17%, Russell said.
But the treasurer, who also announced this week he will seek a second term, said the latest big earnings stem from more than the big gains Wall Street enjoyed in 2025.
“Markets certainly have been strong, but a lot of this is about our overall asset allocation,” said Russell, who updated the Investment Advisory Council Tuesday on the state’s portfolio. “The progress we’ve been making … is a good sign that we’re set up for future success.”
Russell also reported investment gains of 10.3% for the 2024 calendar year and 12.8% for 2023.
State officials particularly have focused on improving investment returns since a May 2023 report from Yale University researchers found Connecticut’s results badly lagged the nation’s over the prior decade.
That only compounded an even larger pension problem that state officials began to address in the early 2010s. According to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, Connecticut governors and legislatures failed to save adequate for pension benefits for more than seven decades prior to 2011. This deprived the state treasurer of huge assets that otherwise could have been invested to generate billions of dollars in revenue over those seven decades.
The treasurer’s office under Russell has put more funds into private and domestic markets and curbed reliance on investment managers who receive large fees for their work.
Gov. Ned Lamont and the General Assembly also have greatly assisted efforts to bolster the fiscal health of pension programs in recent years. Since 2020, they have used $10 billion from budget surpluses to make supplemental payments into pensions for state employees and municipal teachers. That’s in addition to annual required payments that currently approach $3.3 billion in the General Fund.
“These returns highlight the impressive work of Treasurer Russell and his team in increasing investment returns,” Lamont’s budget spokesman, Chris Collibee, said Tuesday. “Gov. Lamont’s focus has been on building a sustainable Connecticut for the future. Every dollar in additional investment revenue is funds the state can use to cut taxes and provide more resources for essential programs like education, child care, housing, and social services safety nets.”
Russell, a New Haven Democrat, said he has tried to make the office both “disciplined and forward-looking.”
“Over the last several years, we haven’t just changed how the office works, we’ve changed who it works for. We’re ushering in a new era of fiscal responsibility, making significant payments on long-term debt that has allowed us to invest in the residents of Connecticut and begin to lift up communities across our state.”
Russell also brokered a key compromise in 2023 between Lamont and the legislature that salvaged the Baby Bonds program, an initiative that invests long-term funds in Connecticut’s poorest children when they’re born to help finance educational and business opportunities later in life.
Keith M. Phaneuf is a reporter for The Connecticut Mirror (https://ctmirror.org). Copyright 2026 © The Connecticut Mirror.
A person was hit by a vehicle Tuesday morning in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Police responded just after 10 a.m. to the crash at the intersection of Elm Street and Carter Street.
Officers began treating the pedestrian, who was then taken to an area hospital with unspecified injuries.
The driver stayed at the scene, the Waltham Police Department said.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
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