When I wrote that I “knew” she was going to lose, I didn’t literally mean I knew it. Of course I don’t see the future. However, I am a supporter of hers, and I was extremely concerned that she would lose, and had a very strong hunch (amounting to a near-certainty in my mind) that she was going to lose.

Of course I might have been wrong. But I felt in my gut, very strongly, that she would lose.

The polls were always close, however, with a lot of back-and-forth between the two. My perception was a gut feeling that was simply my own.

And she did lose, although closely. My point is that my strong strong feeling that she would lose, and my strong perception of her vulnerability, was present long before Trump got into the race.

And no, there is no reason to conclude that Trump helped her or that support of him would have helped her at all, since he lost New Hampshire by almost four times as many votes as she did.

If you actually look at the polls for NH there is no support for your theory. The race was close the whole way, with the lead changing hands many times. But the article I was quoting in the post made it seem as though Ayotte lost because of her lack of support of Trump, and there is absolutely no support for that idea, and the available evidence is that it is false.

Let me put it another way- if you really were that sure she was toast prior to the election, doesn’t the logical post-election theory have to be that despite her deep and unique problems, Trump nearly dragged (or, since he also lost the state, nearly pushed) her across the finish line?

In the end, I was convinced that I should vote for her, and I did. But I didn’t give her any money, donate time, or talk to voters. I would have preferred not to vote for either candidate, but Ayotte was the lesser of two evils. She did the minimum to get my support, so I gave her the minimum support in return. Many libertarians and conservatives aren’t going to work for RINOs.

The DNC machine was willing to go all-out to support Gov. Hassan, as a rubber-stamp for President Hillary Clinton’s agenda. [Oops.] Even then it was an excruciatingly negative campaign. Hassan was a barely passable governor, so Hassan didn’t stand on her record and attacked Ayotte constantly. I had numerous volunteers at my door canvassing for Hassan — none for Ayotte.

Q: What’s the difference between a DNC parrot and a RINO?
A: Not enough to care about.

You are wrong about Ayotte.

I knew she was going to lose before Trump even declared himself as a candidate, that’s how much propaganda there was against her, and how weakly she was supported by the voters of NH. In New England, she was known to be very very vulnerable, and that’s why the Democrats targeted her seat as a possible and even probable upset long before Trump ever entered the race.

Plus, as I already wrote, her opponent Hassan was very well-liked there.

A perfect storm against Ayotte, none of it about Trump at all.

IDK. PJ Media have been a rather strong trump supporters. And they (among many) have been pushing the meme that this was a “landslide” for trump.

Yes, he did win, but neither his margins in the swing states (e.g. in NH) nor his ecv results (lowest quartile of win margins since 1948) indicate a landslide. Neither did he have “coattails” where many Senators who won outperformed trump wrt their win margins (13 of 22 GOP wins, with several more merely approximately tied trump’s margins).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2016

Fair and square win, but no “landslide”.

With GOP retaining Congress, it is an opportunity.
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This election clinton was clearly the loser because the percentage of eligible voters of previous elections didn’t show up in far greater numbers her than those who didn’t show up for trump.

Re: clinton’s loss, a scathing assessment by a left leaning(?) blog…
https://theweek.com/articles/664828/hillary-clinton-blew-most-winnable-election-modern-american-history-fault

trump swung a thin margin of rust belt dem voters his way in key swing states, and that put him over the top.
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Looking ahead to the next POTUS cycle, can he keep that thin margin, and, if so, will that bring back those now alienated GOP voters, or antagonize them further?

And, will it keep the dems from bringing back the rest of their eligible voters from prior years (since trump out dem’d the dems), with a fresh face in 2020?

We’ll see.

Well, that’s disturbing. My guess is that the people at your voting place were more lax than at many places. In the end, rules like that are only as good as the people who enforce them.

Jim,

The republican leadership are not fools. They simply favor the status quo. Clearly voter fraud is against their long term interests. Whenever people appear to act against their own interests, I look for what I term the ‘secondary gain or benefit’. Invariably there is for them a payoff that they deem of greater value. In this case, ‘upsetting the applecart’ is deemed to be “counter-productive”.

They’ve simply persuaded themselves that what’s best for them is what’s best for the country.