Comments on: New Hampshire displays its split personality once again

By: Linda S Fox

Linda S Fox — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 14:09:46 +0000

The Red at Home aspect might result from wanting to keep the government locally out of their hair, and paying as little as possible for it.
The Blue Nationally might be because they can count on their state and local governments to keep the Feds off their back.

By: JD Keene

JD Keene — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 01:53:24 +0000

And then there are those Out of State (determined by cost of tuition) students who get to vote here and maybe even at their real home… for the double whammy. This should not be allowed, but any R that I speak with gives me a majorly limp explanation as to why it’s this way and whine that they can’t do anything about it.

Fully red NH legislature and governor should fix this.

Then there is the matter of the 3,000+ NH folks who moved out of state and yet are still on the voter roles here (and who voted in 2020/2024).

Not in my town, I checked. A family sold their house here and within a week they were removed from our roles. Odd, we are quite blue in this little burg.

By: Tregonsee314

Tregonsee314 — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 19:00:42 +0000

New Hampshire is strange indeed. Looking at their state wide offices all are either Republican or Nonpartisan (i.e. no stated party) The big exception is the Executive council District 2. I expectd this to include Nashua or Manchester or perhaps Durham (Home of UNH). But those all have Republican Councillors. District 2 is a gangling gerrymander of a region running up along the Vermont border on the Connecticut River way up to Littleton NH (about 2/3’s of the way to Canada). I suspect this is because the district contains Concord (small city home to much of New Hampshire’s swamp denizens) and Hanover home to Dartmouth and surrounding towns favored by the assorted Professors of that Ivy League school. The presidential elections are likely driven by UNH and Dartmouth students registering through same day registration at the polls. That may also skew Presidential year federal offices like House seats. The two universities each fall into separate districts (NH has only 2).

I was willing to think the cities (such as they are, Nashua, Manchester, Concord and the two university towns) dominated the federal state races with small towns (excepting some ex hippie outposts near Vermont) having stayed old New England Republican (Fiscal Conservative, non-interventionist/isolationist international, relatively liberal socially, think Calvin Coolidge) but my theory has a plethora of holes if there aren’t any Dems at the statewide level. Beats the heck out of me.

By: Abraxas

Abraxas — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 16:35:04 +0000

The conventional wisdom is that it was the new arrivals from Massachusetts that turned New Hampshire Democrat in national elections, but people from Lowell and Lawrence who cross the line are trying to get away from Massachusetts and don’t want its taxes and problems. Rather, it’s more the native population that’s leaned towards the Democrats in the last 30 years or so, as has happened all over the Northeast. It’s surprising to me that even many rural towns voted for Biden and then Harris. They aren’t so different from Massachusetts or even Vermont.

According to Wikipedia, the balance of Republicans and Democrats in the state legislature going into the election was quite close, 5 votes out of 400. It would be interesting to know how many of those legislators on both sides were new style ideologically committed politicians and how many were less strident old style politicos.

New Hampshire doesn’t pay its legislators very much. Can it really be only $100 a year? They aren’t full time legislators. My guess is that makes them less ideological and more in touch with their constituents. Massachusetts had a 240 member lower house and cut the number back to 160, increasing salaries along the way, so now they are permanent nuisances, rather than merely seasonal ones.

The libertarian Free State movement was going to turn New Hampshire into a libertarian state the way that flatlanders moving into Vermont in the 70s and 80s turned that state into a socialist paradise. It doesn’t appear to have happened so far.

By: Conservative Beaner

Conservative Beaner — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 09:58:40 +0000

Folks from NH are not stupid. They elect the best for home and send the worst to DC for us to deal with.

By: T J

T J — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 08:23:49 +0000

In the week before Election Day, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire endorsed Trump for President in a two page missive. LPNH is often thought to be the largest state LP organization, especially per capita of a states total population.

By: Yancey Ward

Yancey Ward — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 04:51:04 +0000

The state’s voters are like functional alcoholics- going crazy on the weekend benders (national elections) but getting into the office on Monday hung-over but on time to grind out the work-week (state elections).

By: John Galt III

John Galt III — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 02:03:09 +0000

I have the answer:

“Barring any changes from recounts, the House is expected to have 222 Republicans and 178 Democrats, according to the House Clerk’s Office; the Senate is projected to have 16 Republicans and eight Democrats.”

So, NH has like 800 people and 424 are in their legislature.
I mean the US Congress has 535 for 350,000,000 people, right?

Problem solved.

By: Christopher B

Christopher B — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 01:09:27 +0000

I think Assistant Village Idiot (a NH native, IIRC) has written about their legislature. As I recall the state constitution fixed the number of citizens per district at a pretty absurdly small number for the current size of the population, the salary for legislators may also be fixed at a pretty small amount so there’s little fiscal pressure to cut the size and it’s not uncommon to actually personally know a legislator.

By: neo

neo — Sat, 16 Nov 2024 22:34:46 +0000

Griffin:

I think NH has something like the third largest legislative body in the world. And it’s a very small state.