On fraud: New Hampshire turns blue with a tiny purple spot
New Hampshire is a very small state both geographically and in terms of population, and not much attention has been paid to it this cycle. But I think it’s very instructive to take a look, especially for those who believe that fraud was a significant element in this year’s election results. Simply put, New Hampshire has an unusually reliable voting system and its swing to the left mirrored that of many other states and even exceeded it. When there’s a widespread voting pattern like that, even in states with fairly tight voting laws, the chance of fraud being a big factor diminishes and something else is operating.
This year about 640K people voted in New Hampshire; that’s what I mean by “small.” Voter ID is required and paper ballots used. There is no early in-person voting and there are quite strict controls on absentee voting and on who can bring in ballots from a disabled person. Although scanners count the votes, there is also this check:
After ballots are initially counted, election officials must sign a post-election certificate that includes a variety of records, including polling place records that show the number of voters who checked in and number of ballots issued.
New Hampshire state law requires the secretary of state to conduct an audit after state primary and general elections and presidential primaries of randomly selected precincts. Two percent of ballots or 50 ballots, whichever is greater, must be counted by hand.
They all know there is a decent chance that they will be checked, and it doesn’t take a challenge or a close election to do it. The paper ballots are all saved and a hand count recount can easily be done if there is any kind of close election or suspicion of problems. It really is an unusually well-controlled situation and yet this time the state legislature flipped enormously.
The previous legislature was controlled by the GOP: in the NH House it was 207-184 and in the Senate it was 14-10. But as a result of Tuesday’s election, see this:
Paul Smith, the House clerk, announced Wednesday that Democrats may hold a 292-107 advantage over Republicans, with one Independent. He cautioned that there are likely to be recounts and other tight races with vote tallies still trickling in that could alter the final balance of power.
In the state Senate, the Associated Press is forecasting a 15-9 margin for Democrats, just shy of a veto-proof majority, though several races there also remain uncalled.
Talk about tsunamis! It’s an extraordinary change. Plus, something called the Executive Council went from 4-1 Republican to 5-0 Democrat.
Looking at all of that, it’s amazing that New Hampshire’s Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte was re-elected. But that fact also underscores that the election results in New Hampshire were not fraudulent. She got 51.38% to her Democrat opponent’s 47.1%. Ayotte’s vote margin was about 27K; not a landslide, but certainly a victory.
How did she do it? I don’t know. There must have been a lot of split ballots, too, because the total number of votes cast in the governor’s race (about 631K) was very close to the total cast in the US Senate race (636K) in New Hampshire. The latter was won by the Democrat by about a 14-point margin.
Note that those numbers – in a state so recently Republican-led in its legislature – now resemble California’s recent legislature. In California, the Senate has been 30-10 Democrat to Republican. The California Assembly (its lower house) has had much the same ratio. Because California takes so long to count its votes it’s not yet clear what the final tally will be for the next session, but you can see that the NH House approaches that same kind of ratio. It is a stunning change.
[NOTE: As a result of this election, New Hampshire has also come to resemble Vermont. Vermont’s Democrats recaptured two-thirds majorities in both houses. In Vermont, this means the Democrats have veto-proof majorities whereas in New Hampshire they are one Senate seat shy of a veto-proof majority (that apparently could change, according to the article I quoted, and I haven’t seen a more recent update on it so I assume it hasn’t been resolved). The veto-proof majority in both states matter, because both states have Republican governors.
Go figure. Vermont’s Republican governor is very popular:
Scott was first elected governor of Vermont in 2016, and was reelected in 2018, 2020, 2022, 2024, and 2026. Scott’s 2024 margin of victory is the largest in any Vermont gubernatorial election since 1946. Beginning in 2027, Scott will be the longest-serving incumbent governor in the United States. If Scott finishes his sixth term in January 2029, he will also be the longest-serving governor in Vermont history.
Scott is often described as a moderate Republican or a liberal Republican. While according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, Vermont is the most Democratic-leaning U.S. state (D+17), Scott has consistently ranked as the nation’s most popular governor.
Ayotte is fairly moderate as well, as was her predecessor (also a Republican).]
I’m intrigued by the latest developments in both New Hampshire and Vermont politics. Although the states had long been rather like twins (small, rural, mountainous, and traditionally rather conservative) through the 1950s or early 1960s, they both changed considerably since then. I spent almost four years in New Hampshire in the mid-to-late 1980s. At the time, the state was still rather conservative and John H. Sununu was governor. By contrast, Vermont had been transformed by an infusion of hippies and other transplants from New York during the 1970s, and Madeleine Kunin was governor.
Since that time, I continued to think of Vermont as very left-wing, and I’ve watched as New Hampshire has become much more liberal, as well (largely as a result of more folks from Massachusetts moving in to the southern parts of the state). From what you describe here, though, it sounds like to some extent things have begun to stabilize a bit, and both states have moderated somewhat and maybe in political and cultural terms they are beginning to resemble each other more once again.