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A Demographic Profile of New Hampshire CR Welcome back! CR We spent some time last week talking about the nomination process and New Hampshire's place in the process, and we described the historical background of New Hampshire's primary. This week, we're shifting our focus to the state of New Hampshire itself … its geography, its economy, and its people. CR Many commentators have complained that New Hampshire is too small, too white, too rural, and too rich to deserve a position in the nomination process. The implication is that issues important to voters in other parts of the country, especially issues that matter in states with large urban centers, are ignored by candidates when they campaign in New Hampshire. CR The state is, indeed, small. New Hampshire is the fifth smallest state in area, slightly larger than New Jersey and slightly smaller than Vermont. It is the eighth smallest state in population with 1.3 million people in 2010. That's approximately 0.4 percent of the U.S. population. CR New Hampshire is certainly not an urban state - 60 percent of New Hampshire residents lived in urban areas in 2000 compared to 81 percent of the country as a whole - but it is certainly not rural either. New Hampshire's population density in 2010 was 147 people per square mile, which is much more heavily populated than the US as a whole When compared to other U.S. states, New Hampshire ranks in the middle as the 23rd most densely populated. CR Most of New Hampshire's population lives in a triangle from Nashua to Concord to Portsmouth. Its six northern and western counties, Coos, Grafton, Carroll, Belknap, Sullivan and Cheshire, comprise only 26 percent of the state's population. There are two significant cities in New Hampshire, both of which are in Hillsborough County, the largest county in the state. Manchester, with a population of 110,000 in 2010, has been the largest city in the state since the 1800s, but is only the 290th largest city in the country. The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company mill buildings line the banks of the Merrimack River. These mills were once the largest manufacturing space in the world, making everything from textiles to locomotives. The buildings are now filled with offices, shops and high tech companies. CR Further south on the Merrimack River and near the Massachusetts border is Nashua , population 88,000. It too prospered during the 1800s and early 1900s as a manufacturing center, driven by the Nashua Manufacturing Company. And like Manchester, Nashua saw jobs move south after World War I. It boomed again during the 1970s and 1980s as companies such as Digital Equipment and Sanders Associates fueled the first high-tech boom in greater Boston. The old and new manufacturing of Nashua are evident as part of the old Nashua Manufacturing Company plant that now houses BAE Systems Electronics and Integrated Solutions, which purchased Sanders in 2000. BAE is now the state's largest manufacturing employer, producing advanced electronics for the aerospace and defense industries. CR The next three largest cities are the capital, Concord in Merrimack County, and the former mill towns of Rochester and Dover in Strafford County. Both of these towns were once thriving manufacturing centers, but like Manchester and Nashua, the brick and stone mill buildings, formerly filled with machines driven by water power from nearby rivers, now house a variety of commercial, office and residential spaces. CR Portsmouth, in Rockingham Couinty, represents an unusual community in that it is relatively small, even by New Hampshire standards , but it is economically significant in that it is central to two significant military bases: Pease Air National Guard Base and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. CR The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is the oldest operating yard in the U.S. Navy, established in 1800, and currently refits and modernizes Los Angeles class nuclear attack submarines. At its peak in World War II, it employed more than 20,000 people. It currently employs about 3,000, many of whom live in New Hampshire. Pease was a Strategic Air Command base during the cold war, but was closed in 1990. Most of the former base is now a corporate office park with more than 245 companies employing more than 7,000 people. Because of these two important economic engines, the New Hampshire Seacoast, centered in Portsmouth, is one of the most important economic regions in the state. CR The rest of Rockingham County borders Massachusetts and is largely tied to the Bay State both culturally and economically. A high percentage of its residents work in Massachusetts and most moved to New Hampshire from across the border. It is the most prosperous county in the state and is the second most populous county. CR Strafford County is also commonly included in the New Hampshire "Seacoast". Dover, Rochester, and Durham, home of the University of New Hampshire, are the largest towns. But the northern part of the county is very rural and blue collar. The western part of the state, Cheshire and Sullivan counties, is quite rural. Mount Monadnock, one of the most frequently climbed mountains in the world, overlooks the towns of Peterborough and Dublin where many wealthy people from New York and Boston have second homes. Keene, the capitol of Cheshire County, is a bustling college town, home to Keene State College. Sullivan County to the north is even more rural, and less well off. Claremont and Newport, gritty former mill towns, have never recovered from the loss of manufacturing. CR The center of the state consists of Merrimack and Belknap counties. Merrimack County, with the exception of the state capitol of Concord, consists of small towns, where many state workers live. Belknap County is best known for Lake Winnipesaukee, the largest lake in the state and a vacation destination for people from throughout the northeast. The city of Laconia, another former mill town, is the largest city in Belknap County and a frequent stop on the primary campaign circuit. CR The North Country of New Hampshire generally refers to Grafton, Carroll and Coos counties. Grafton is hilly and rural, generally blue collar, with the exception of the towns around Hanover, home of Dartmouth College. Carroll County is in the heart of New Hampshire's White Mountains and is best known for its summer vacation spots and winter skiing. Further North, Coos County holds New Hampshire's Great North Woods, where deer and moose might outnumber people! While New Hampshire is not an urban state, it certainly cannot be characterized as a state of rural hunters decked out in black and red wool plaid, as Lamar Alexander famously found out in 1996. But it is also not the manufacturing state it once was. An accurate description is that New Hampshire is a suburban state, largely tied to the greater Boston economy, following Boston sports and watching Boston television. And while the cities and towns in New Hampshire were once significant manufacturing hubs, most of that manufacturing is now gone. CR Next time. |
| Week 1 Page 2 Seg 6 Return to index of stories... |
WEEK 1, PAGE 2, Segment 6 CR The perils of skipping NH CR Welcome back. We're up to 1968, a tumultuous year in American politics - thanks in part to the voters of New Hampshire, who took it upon themselves to "send a message" to the powers that be. And once again an incumbent president chose to ignore the New Hampshire Primary and suffered the price CR Months before the 1968 presidential election officially began, political observers assumed that President Lyndon Johnson intended to run for re-election. This seemed to be a safe bet even though Johnson refused to campaign for his party's nomination. CR Remember, the conventional wisdom at the time was that it was beneath the dignity of a sitting president to have to RUN his party's nomination. After all, he was the party's leader! Johnson wanted to gain the nomination in the traditional way, not by entering primaries and caucuses, but by relying on state party leaders and their delegates to support him at the national convention. CR But Johnson led a party divided. The U.S. was torn apart by disagreement over the Vietnam War, which drained the country's resources, diverted Johnson's attention from the domestic goals of the Great Society, and produced large numbers of casualties every week. CR Frequent anti-war demonstrations made Johnson seem like a prisoner in the White House. If he made campaign appearances in New Hampshire or other states, they would have been dominated by Vietnam. It was much easier for Johnson simply to wait and win the nomination that summer at the Democratic National Convention. CR Still, the president had to decide whether to officially announce his candidacy and put his name on the ballot, or do something else. If Johnson didn't officially declare, he could have New Hampshire's Senator Thomas McIntyre run as a stand-in, or President Johnson could have his supporters launch a write-in campaign. In the end, Johnson opted for what turned out to be a losing strategy: He didn't declare his candidacy, but allowed a write-in campaign on his behalf. CR In the meantime, two liberal activists launched a national "Dump Johnson" movement. The activists, Allard Lowenstein and Curtis Gans. Lowenstein wanted Robert Kennedy to run for several reasons: He was the former U.S. Attorney General, appointed by his brother President Kennedy. He was also a current U.S. Senator from New York and had already expressed doubts about the Vietnam War. CR But Kennedy refused to run. He thought that a direct challenge to Johnson's could divide the party. He also worried that his long-standing animosity towards Johnson would make a campaign seem personal as opposed to political. Besides, Kennedy could afford to wait - he was only 42 and could run four years later, without committing the almost unpardonable sin of challenging his own party's incumbent president. CR Eventually, the leaders of the "Dump Johnson" movement persuaded Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy to run. At first, McCarthy was reluctant to run in New Hampshire, a state he thought was too conservative and hawkish on the war. And, in mid-November, before McCarthy announced his candidacy, the state Democratic Party officially endorsed Johnson for re-election. But the endorsement meant little, since there was no "party machine" available to help the president's campaign. CR But McCarthy's supporters convinced him that it was precisely because of New Hampshire's reputation as a conservative state that he should enter the fray in an attempt to exceed expectations. A McCarthy challenge to Johnson in New Hampshire would mean months of free publicity that could aid the insurgent campaign across the country. CR After visiting the state in December, McCarthy finally agreed. He officially announced his candidacy in January, and anti-war activists soon began coming to New Hampshire to help. They were advised by supporters to "Get Clean for Gene" - which meant to cut their hair and look like "normal" people, rather than like the public stereotypes of n'er-do-well hippies. Many of McCarthy's young campaign workers would stay in New Hampshire after the primary and re-appear in future campaigns. CR Then at the end of January, the North Vietnamese launched the Tet offensive, a massive attack in cities across South Vietnam. That undermined public predictions by the Johnson administration that the war was near its end. CR In February, thousands of anti-war activists, mostly students, poured into New Hampshire to help McCarthy. The ultimate coup, however, may have been a story that leaked over the final weekend before primary day. The story reported that General William Westmoreland had requested 200,000 more troops to fight in Vietnam. CR Lyndon Johnson eventually won the New Hampshire Democratic primary with just under 50 percent percent of he vote. But it was McCarthy who shocked the political world by carrying 42 percent of the New Hampshire vote. That was more than the 40 percent threshold Johnson's campaign had said would be necessary for McCarthy to avoid "disgrace." CR Johnson narrowly defeated McCarthy in the "beauty contest," he actually lost in terms of delegates by a wide 20-4 margin. CR Four days later, Bobby Kennedy entered the race, announcing that McCarthy's victory had shown that the Democratic Party was indeed split. Kennedy worried that his candidacy would cause an irreparable divide in the country, making it difficult to put back together, and also divide the Democratic Party in a very damaging way. But McCarthy had shown Johnson's vulnerability and the divide in the party, so Kennedy felt he could challenge the incumbent president. CR The "Dump Johnson" movement met its goal much more quickly than anyone could have imagined. With Kennedy in the race, Johnson announced on March 31, 1968, that he was not a candidate for re-election and would not serve another term. Johnson's "defeat" in New Hampshire spelled the beginning of the end for his presidency. CR |
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*** HISTORY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE GOP *** CR Prior to the modern primary, New Hampshire's impact on national politics was modest at best. Only one president hails from the Granite State: Franklin Pierce who was elected in 1852. And New Hampshire was long overshadowed by other states in national politics before the modern nomination process. CR But it is, importantly, one of several states that boast to be the home of the Republican Party. Here's the story: A group of local anti-slavery politicians met on October 12, 1853 at Major Blake's Hotel in Exeter where former Congressman Amos Tuck proposed that several parties combine to run under the Republican Party banner. CR Since then, the Republican Party has had a tremendous impact on state politics, and New Hampshire remained one of the most Republican states in the country until the 1990s. During the 20th century, it cast its electoral votes for Democratic candidates only 8 times, while Republican candidates won in the other 17 elections. CR Since the Civil War, New Hampshire has elected only three Democrats to the U.S. Senate, 17 Democrats to Congress, and seven Democratic governors. And Republicans have held the majority in the state House of Representatives and the State Senate for all but a handful of years. CR Now, New Hampshire voters are about to observe the quadrennial traditions of their first-in-the-nation presidential primary, But someone will be missing from this civic celebration. The Yankee Republican, that rural stalwart of New England conservative values, has slowly but surely disappeared from the scene. CR Once upon a time, the rural counties of New Hampshire were among the most Republican in the country. Nowadays, visiting out-of-state reporters are more likely to find Republican primary voters in the densely populated towns of the Granite State's southern tier. CR From the 1960s through the 1980s, when figures such as Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were GOP nominees, New Hampshire was a reliably Republican state. Throughout these decades the Granite State typically voted several percentage points more Republican than the nation as a whole. New Hampshire's Republican tilt disappeared, however, in the 1992 presidential election. In that year, George H. W. Bush, who had carried the state easily in 1988, only won 38 percent of the vote. Ross Perot, a businessman who ran as an independent promising to solve the nation's budget deficit, earned the support of nearly one-quarter of Granite State voters. And Democrat Bill Clinton carried New Hampshire's four electoral votes, an accomplishment he would repeat four years later. No Republican candidate for president has won 50 percent of the vote in New Hampshire since 1988. New Hampshire has moved from reliably Republican to Democratic-tilting bellwether. But why? CR Political scientists have long recognized that partisanship is slow to change and that political domination by one party switches to the other party in one of two general ways. The first is the rise of an important new issue that splits the party and leads to either the creation of a new party or a shuffling of groups that back the existing parties, typically culminating in a "critical election" in which electoral control is secured. CR But there is a second, more gradual type of realignment, first discussed by the political scientist V.O. Key. It's called a "secular realignment." This occurs not necessarily because of a political issue like slavery or the Depression, but because of longer term changes in the electorate itself. This has happened most recently with the slow conversion of the old Confederacy from Democratic to Republican control. The southern realignment resulted in part from a migration of northern companies and people after World War II, as well as the dying of the older generations of southerners tied to the old Democratic Party of slavery and segregation. CR A similar secular realignment has occurred in the northeastern states. This region, once the backbone of the Republican Party, began slowly voting more Democratic beginning in the 1960s. Now, with the notable exception of New Hampshire, the Northeast is perhaps the most reliably Democratic part of the country. Looking specifically at New England, Rhode Island began voting consistently Democratic in the 1930s, Massachusetts in the 1960s, Vermont and Connecticut in the 1970s and Maine in the 1980s. Connecticut and Vermont's conversions were largely driven by people who moved out of New York City to suburbs in Connecticut and those who sought a rural lifestyle in Vermont. CR New Hampshire has been undergoing a similar secular realignment in recent decades, as the Republicans who have dominated state politics since the Civil War have died or moved South and have been replaced by migrants from other Democratic northeastern states. Migrants to New Hampshire did not change their political allegiance when they moved to the Granite State; but were instead changing the political landscape of the state itself. CR Next time, we'll drill down into the political geography of this state, and how the most Republican areas of the state sit just miles away from the border of liberal Massachusetts. |
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Welcome back. As we discussed last time, underneath this slow realignment in the Granite State is a series of dramatic changes in New Hampshire's political geography at the county level. We're going to outline these significant changes now by examining the "political footprint" of the state's Republican Party. Which of New Hampshire's ten counties has the Republican Party dominated over the past four decades, and how have those counties changed over time? CR The Granite State's counties are grouped as follows: CR CORE COUNTIES: Hillsborough and Rockingham counties, both of which border Massachusetts, typically generate one-half of all votes cast in New Hampshire. CR BORDERING THE CORE: Merrimack and Strafford counties, which border Hillsborough and Rockingham to their north, account for one of five votes cast in New Hampshire. CR PERIPHERY: These rural counties include the Vermont border counties of Cheshire, Sullivan, and Grafton; and the northern counties of Belknap, Carroll, and Coos. The periphery's relative voting power has shrunk over the decades as the core counties have become more densely populated. CR During the 1960s, Republicans dominated northern New Hampshire, with the exception of Coos County, home of working-class bastions such as the city of Berlin. In Carroll County, for example, Republican presidential candidates performed 22 percentage points better than they did statewide during the 1960s. Traveling from east to west across the state, GOP presidential candidates performed eight percentage points better than statewide in both Belknap and Grafton counties during the same period. CR Further south, Merrimack County was a source of Republican strength in the 1960s, voting five percentage points more strongly Republican than statewide. Toward the Seacoast, Strafford County was a source of Democratic strength, voting five percentage points less Republican than statewide. CR The core counties of the Granite State, Hillsborough and Rockingham, tilted in opposite directions throughout the 1960s. Hillsborough County, featuring the state's two largest cities, Manchester and Nashua, was a key Democratic stronghold throughout the 1960s. Republican presidential candidates did far worse here than they did statewide, carrying seven percentage points fewer votes than statewide on average. Rockingham County, in contrast, boosted Republican presidential candidates considerably. GOP candidates performed six percentage points better in Rockingham than statewide. CR All told, the Republican Party enjoyed dominance in five counties all across the Granite State, from Rockingham in the southeast to Grafton in the northwest. This pattern was about to undergo change, however - in part because of the significant growth in New Hampshire's population, and in part because of changes in the national Republican Party itself. In the 1970s and 1980s, New Hampshire was in the middle of a burst in growth that lasted for decades after World War II. This growth, of course, had an impact on the New Hampshire vote, both statewide and at the county level. Overall, 30 percent more voters cast ballots in the 1980 presidential election, when Ronald Reagan carried the state for the first time, than in 1960. This growth, however, varied widely from county to county, with Rockingham County leading the way. The number of ballots cast in Rockingham grew by 76 percent from 1960 to 1980, a rate 250 percent greater than statewide. Other counties outside the core, however, lagged significantly. By 1980, voters in the core counties of Hillsborough and Rockingham were casting 51 percent of all ballots in New Hampshire, up from 46 percent in 1960. CR Throughout this period, the Republican Party remained dominant in presidential elections. GOP candidates carried the Granite State five consecutive times, from Richard Nixon in 1972 to George H. W. Bush in 1988. At the county level, however, the "footprint" of Republican dominance shifted and shrunk during these two decades. For example: Rockingham County, where the GOP dominated in the 1960s, became a "bellwether" county, voting for Republican candidates at the same rate as statewide. CR Merrimack County, another area of GOP dominance in the 1960s, also became a bellwether. In northern New Hampshire, Belknap, Carroll and Grafton counties still tilted Republican in the 1980s, but at a lesser degree than the 1960s. CR In all, by 1980, the Republican Party only dominated TWO counties in New Hampshire, both in the north: Belknap and Carroll. In-migration may well have played a part in this shift. CR Another factor was the changing national identity of the Republican Party. As Nixon advisor Kevin Phillips wrote in The Emerging Republican Majority, the GOP began to shift its policy positions in the 1960s, becoming more conservative on issues such as crime, welfare, civil rights, and the size and scale of government more generally. Nationally, the Republican Party's electoral base began to shift, drawing more votes from southerners and from socially conservative Democrats in the Northeast. In doing so, the GOP began to repel moderates, many of whom were found in Yankee country. CR New Hampshire continued its growth path through the 1980s and 1990s: 48 percent more votes were cast in the 2000 presidential election than in 1980. Once again, growth was concentrated in the eastern half of the state, with Rockingham and Carroll counties leading the way. CR So what does all of this mean? CR These changes have impacted not just general elections in New Hampshire, but the presidential primary as well. Compare, for example, the 1976 Republican presidential primary with the most recent in 2012: CR Core counties. In 1976, voters in Hillsborough and Rockingham counties combined to cast 44 percent of all ballots in the Republican primary. By 2012, their portion of the primary vote had increased to 55 percent. Three of 10 votes were cast in Hillsborough alone, one of four in Rockingham. CR Core border. Merrimack and Strafford counties have held steady in terms of voting power in the Republican primary, casting roughly one of five votes. CR Periphery. Thirty years ago, a Republican running for president could find a fair number of votes in the rural counties of the Granite State. One-third of all GOP ballots cast in the 1976 primary came from places such as Belknap and Carroll; and counties bordering Vermont such as Grafton and Cheshire. Even Coos County accounted for 4 percent of all GOP primary votes. CR By 2008, Coos's "voting power" in the primary had shrunk by half, from 4 percent of ballots cast to just 2 percent. And the influence of the rural periphery as a whole has waned significantly. These six counties now account for just one of every four votes cast in the presidential primary. CR To conclude: on the one hand, national political reporters will have an increasingly difficult time landing an interview with the laconic old-timer sporting the red plaid jacket. On the other, a chief complaint about the New Hampshire primary - that its voters are too rural, hence too unrepresentative of the general electorate - is dissipating. The fate of the Republicans running in New Hampshire in 2016 will largely be decided by voters who live within the environs of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. |
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For the last two decades, New Hampshire has become known as the quintessential "swing state," a sensitive bellwether to the political moods of the nation. CR It is also a quite volatile state, as many local politicians have discovered to their dismay. For example, in New Hampshire's First Congressional District , the incumbent has lost four times in the last five elections. CR Control over our state legislature has also shifted back several times during the past decade. In terms of presidential politics, New Hampshire was once a reliably Republican state. So reliable, in fact, that Granite State voters rarely saw a presidential candidate once the primary was over, because Democrats essentially conceded the state's four electoral votes to the Republican in the general election. CR As you can see in the graph , the vote share for the Republican presidential candidate in New Hampshire was reliably several points higher than the Republican's share of the national vote. With rare exception, this was true throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. CR This all changed, however, in the early 1990s. CR In 1992, George H. W. Bush - who carried New Hampshire easily in 1988 over Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis - faced an unexpectedly strong challenge from Patrick Buchanan in the New Hampshire Republican primary. At the time, New Hampshire was experiencing a severe economic recession, magnified by a local banking crisis. In October 1991, seven large New Hampshire banks closed and had to be put under the protection of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. CR In the general election, Bush faced not only Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, but millionaire businessman Ross Perot, who ran as an independent intent on fixing the country's economic and fiscal woes. CR Perot failed to carry a single state in the general election, but he was still a significant force in the election, carrying 19 percent of the vote nationwide. And in notoriously independent New Hampshire, Perot did a bit better, winning over 23 percent of Granite State voters. CR The incumbent president managed to win just 38 percent of the vote in New Hampshire, and Bill Clinton carried the Granite State with just under 40 percent. CR Since that time , no Republican presidential candidate has won a majority of New Hampshire voters in a general election. One of those candidates, George W. Bush, managed to carry the state anyway in 2000 over Vice President Al Gore, thanks in part to Ralph Nader's third-party candidacy. CR Losing Republican candidates since 1992 include the last two winners of the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, John McCain and Mitt Romney. Although their center-right brand of conservatism seemed tailor-made for a New Hampshire electorate, neither managed to perform better here than they did nationwide. In gubernatorial politics , Democrats have had the upper hand for the last two decades, winning nine of the last 10 contests. Winning candidates have usually campaigned on a platform of no broad-based income or sales taxes , while situating themselves to the left of Republicans on social issues such as abortion or gay marriage. CR New Hampshire's 4-person congressional delegation currently is divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans. Last November, Jeanne Shaheen was just re-elected narrowly over New Hampshire newcomer Scott Brown, the former senator of Massachusetts. This was Shaheen's fifth election to statewide office. CR New Hampshire's junior senator is Republican Kelly Ayotte, the former state Attorney General who survived a close primary and then romped to a general election victory during the Republican "wave year" of 2010. CR In New Hampshire's First District, Republican Frank Guinta last year won back the seat he lost in 2012 to Carol Shea-Porter. Guinta, who represents one of the scarce swing districts in the House of Representatives, is widely expected to face strong Democratic opposition in 2016. CR And last but not least, Democrat Ann McLane Kuster represents New Hampshire's Second District, which comprises the western half of the state and has a decided Democratic tilt. She just won re-election for her second term last year. CR SO, TO SUM UP: CR The realignment that has been underway for the past two decades seemed to have reached the tipping point with big Democratic wins in 2006 and 2008, but Republicans rebounded strongly in 2010, taking back both of New Hampshire's Congressional seats, holding a U.S. Senate seat, and winning veto-proof majorities in the state House and Senate. Some argue that New Hampshire has returned to its Republican past after a brief flirtation with the Democrats, but the primary reason for these swings in partisan control in the Granite State is that there is now rough parity between Democrats and Republicans. CR This is the also the reason that New Hampshire has been seen as a battleground state in presidential elections since the 1990s. It would be easy, but misleading, to conclude that New Hampshire voters are swinging wildly from Democrat to Republican from election to election. A more accurate description is that New Hampshire is equally balanced between Republicans and Democrats, making differential turnout a key factor in determining electoral outcomes. |