InsideSources

After days of complaints from Black Lives Matter activists over his lack of response — including a #WheresChris? hashtag — Gov. Chris Sununu sent the BLM organizations of Nashua and Manchester a letter Tuesday addressing their recently-released list of demands for policing and criminal justice reform.

His message: “Further discussion is merited.”

Sununu is the last of the 2020 gubernatorial candidates to respond to the group’s demands, released Friday evening just hours before a Black Lives Matter Day of Action in Concord. Both Democrats, state Sen. Dan Feltes and Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky, endorsed the BLM demands in their entirety within a day of their release. Even the obscure Libertarian candidate, Darryl Perry, largely endorsed their proposals.

Sununu’s response was more circumspect.

“We are reviewing the action items you put forward – several of which I support, several of which the newly-established Commission on Law Enforcement Accountability, Community, and Transparency will undertake over the next 45 days, and others which further discussion is merited,” Sununu wrote.

“Promoting social justice and racial equality in New Hampshire has been, and continues to be, a top priority of my administration,” he added, a theme he reiterated during Tuesday’s COVID-19 press briefing.

“The vast majority of things on that list are things we’ve done or are in the process of doing,” Sununu said. “When I took office, we didn’t even have a Civil Rights Unit in the state.  Not Governor Hassan, not Governor Lynch. Those Democrat governors, they didn’t do it — we did.”

The same on decriminalization of marijuana, Sununu said, another issue addressed by Black Lives Matter. “Governors Lynch and Hassan, they absolutely refused to de-criminalize [marijuana]. That’s one of the first things I did.”

Joanna Kelley, a Portsmouth, NH business owner and activist, told NHJournal she read the letter and was less than impressed.

“His answer was more about himself and what he says he’s accomplished than about the goals of the movement,” Kelley said. “It sounded more like placating than a commitment to progress.”

Her fellow BLM supporters apparently feel the same way. BLM Nashua has launched a petition drive calling on Sununu to “Commit to NH BLM’s Racial Justice Demands.”

“While we appreciate Governor Sununu’s willingness to acknowledge our demands, we have asked for substantive responses to each of them, and neither his letter nor his statement adequately met that criteria,” BLM Nashua said.

“Black and brown Americans deserve better than lip service and empty gestures of solidarity from our elected officials. We deserve justice. We need action now.”

Sununu stands by his record.

“For decades, prior administrations failed to act,” Sununu said Monday. “I am proud to say we have moved the ball forward these past few years, but there is still more work to do.”

“I’ll put my record up against anybody’s.”

It took less than 24 hours for the two Democrats vying to take on Gov. Chris Sununu to agree to Black Lives Matter’s demands on police reform and criminal justice. That list includes prisoner releases, expunging criminal records and closing the demographic gap on race and incarceration.

A day after Black Lives Matter Nashua, and its sister organization in Manchester released, their “set of 7 demands aimed at Governor Sununu, state Sen. Dan Feltes and Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky,” the two Democrats on the list had already tweeted out their support.

“Whether subtle or overt, caught on tape or not, every day our Black brothers and sisters face words, actions, & policies that rob them of the American dream. These are important steps I support that will make a real difference right now. Thank you for your activism and advocacy,” Feltes tweeted.

He followed up the next day with a pledge to “establish a new racial equity office to begin addressing injustice and ensuring representation in our state government. There are many steps we must take to address systemic racism, and this is just a start.”

Volinsky, still dealing with the fallout of his treatment of two African-American nominees to state boards that BLM members have described as “racist,” was even more aggressive. After quickly tweeting out his endorsement of the list, Volinsky followed up with a lengthy statement embracing the demands and expanding on them.

 

 

“Despite our reputation as a state with little diversity, we are blind if we don’t understand that New Hampshire has many of the same problems and afflictions that plague other states with larger Black and Brown populations: police violence, discrimination in the workplace, over-incarceration, disproportionate health outcomes, including those resulting from the impact of COVID-19, housing discrimination, underfunded public schools, and a societal burden from hundreds of years of systemic racism that invariably alters the day-to-day life of Black and Brown Granite Staters,” Volinsky wrote.

Volinsky pointed out that “as an Executive Councilor, I have repeatedly led the effort to offer pardon hearings to applicants,” part of his support for both releasing all non-violent cannabis offenders (including large-scale dealers) and expounding their records.

“I often have been rebuked in this effort by the governor, by other Councilors and by interest groups, but it was the right thing to do and I shall continue to seek relief for incarcerated persons.”

Releasing prisoners early and letting drug dealers re-enter society with no record of their crimes may be politically popular among Democratic primary voters, but thus far Republican Chris Sununu hasn’t jumped on the bandwagon. As of Monday night, he had not responded to BLM’s demands, a fact the organization has noted.

Sununu was a no-show at Saturday’s BLM “Day of Action” event in Concord, inspiring chants of “Where’s Chris?” from the crowd. On Twitter Monday, BLM Nashua wrote:

 

Sununu’s office declined requests for comment from NHJournal. However, on June 9 Sununu told NHJournal he rejected the charge New Hampshire police suffer from “systemic racism.”

“We talk about implicit bias. We talk about the idea of making sure that all the law enforcement communities across the state understand those issues in terms of how to deal with them,” Sununu acknowledged, but added, “Do we have systematic racism throughout our law enforcement community here in New Hampshire? No.”

Republican state Rep. Tim Lang (R-Sanbornton), a 10-year law enforcement veteran, defended Sununu’s record on police reform and racial justice issues.

“Back in 2017, long before the current movement, he formed the Civil Rights Unit in the state Department of Justice,” Lang told NHJournal. “He formed the Commission on Law Enforcement weeks ago, with a tight timeline to actually take action. They talk about a Civilian Oversight Board, well, we’ve got civilians on the Police Standards and Training Council already.”

As for the BLM’s demands: “Hostage takers make demands. Reasonable people talk,” Lang says. “Our Governor is way ahead of those guys, and they are just playing catch-up.”

Gov. Chris Sununu announced on Tuesday he’s nominating New Hampshire Attorney General Gordon MacDonald to serve as the next Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court, filling the vacancy created when Chief Justice Bob Lynn retires at the end of August. If confirmed, MacDonald would be the third Sununu pick to be placed on the bench, giving the governor a majority of appointees on the five-member court.

“Gordon has never been afraid to follow the path or take the action that he believes is right, even when that course may not be the easiest and even when some, including myself, may disagree with him,” Sununu said in a statement. “Our Department of Justice is stronger than ever due to Gordon’s leadership and independence, and I am confident that, if confirmed, Gordon will use his unparalleled legal talents and fair-minded approach to lead our judicial branch with distinction.”

Sununu will make the formal nomination at the Governor and Executive Council meeting on Wednesday, June 5.

In 2017 a bipartisan Executive Council voted unanimously in favor of MacDonald’s appointment to the AG’s office, and his nomination to the court was met with approval from both sides of the aisle.

“Gordon MacDonald is one of the better attorneys general this state has ever had, I hate to lose him,” Democratic state Sen. Lou D’Allesandro told NHJournal. “We win cases with him!  And he has endless energy. It’s an excellent pick.”

Ted Gatsas, a Republican member of the Executive Council, called it “a great nomination.”  When asked if he expected any opposition from his fellow councilors Gatsas replied, “You never know.”

Councilor Andru Volinsky, a Concord Democrat considering a run for governor in 2020, was reluctant to comment on MacDonald’s nomination in advance of a public hearing. But Volinsky voted (along with fellow Democrat Chris Pappas) to confirm MacDonald for the AG’s job and praised him at the time for his high ethical standards.

Given Volinsky’s ambitions, should New Hampshire expect the sort of “I am Spartacus!” hearings that U.S. Supreme Court nominations inspire down in DC? “We generally avoid the sort of partisanship you see in Washington,” Volinsky told NHJournal. “But I have pressed nominees hard in the past,” he said.

There have been some controversial nominees, however, most recently Dorothy Graham. In 2015 Graham, a former public defender nominated by Gov. Maggie Hassan (D), was rejected 3-2 by a GOP-controlled Executive Council over her handling of cases involving accused child rapists. Opponents argued that she was too aggressive in pursuing loopholes and technicalities attempting to reduce her clients’ sentences.

There are currently no dark clouds on the horizon for MacDonald. Former New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice Linda Dalianis, an appointee of Democratic Gov. John Lynch, said in a statement, “I have every confidence that he will be an excellent Chief Justice of New Hampshire.”

And longtime Republican strategist Jim Merrill told NHJournal that MacDonald “is one of the smartest and most honorable men I know and we are better for someone of his caliber agreeing to continue serving New Hampshire.

“Governor Sununu could not have made a finer nomination to the Supreme Court,” Merrill said.

The most memorable thing about Gov. John Chris Sununu’s second inaugural address (other than Speaker Shurtleff’s gaffe) was how much fun the governor had giving it.  It’s the defining aspect of the Sununu style of governance:  In a time of seemingly non-stop political anger and partisan anguish, Chris Sununu is having a great time.

A little too great, based on the 60+ minutes run time. (“This was 20 minutes when I read it at home last night,” Sununu assured the assembled). Still, by peppering the speech with personal stories and anecdotes– along with classic Sununu self-deprecation–the governor kept things moving. And any speech that can work in quotes from Harry Potter and Adam Sandler can’t be all bad.

 

Most of the speech was spent cheerleading–another Sununu staple. He celebrated the state’s economy, the previous work of the legislature, the efforts of healthcare and public safety employees, the life of George H. W. Bush, his wife’s charity work with Bridges House, etc.

If Gov. Sununu’s speech had a soundtrack, it would have been “Everything Is Awesome” from The Lego Movie.

But everything isn’t quite awesome, as the governor acknowledged, as he spoke about suicide rates in a way that echoed the discussion of opioid addiction a few years ago. He also talked about the ongoing drug abuse issue, the “hub and spoke” approach, and lingering concerns about the performance of DCYF, etc.

Not surprisingly for a Republican governor who must work with a Democratic-controlled legislature, Sununu avoided partisanship. In fact, the words “Republican” and “Democrat” appear but once in his prepared remarks:

“Whether you are a Republican or Democrat, Independent or Libertarian — we all share a passion for making our communities the strongest they can be.”

But that doesn’t mean Sununu avoided partisan politics. New Hampshire Democrats haven’t been shy talking about the tax increases that are part of their “Granite State Opportunity Plan.”  Though the Democrats in the House and Senate haven’t come together on a single approach, they all involve at a minimum taking away tax reductions scheduled for the future, if not raising tax rates on businesses outright.

Gov Sununu didn’t pick any fights from the podium, but he was very clear:

“Look at the data. Revenues are rising. Costly regulations have been eliminated, and we are investing surplus funds into smart one-time investments.
 
I implore this legislature to learn from the mistakes of the past.  The last thing we should be doing is raising taxes or pushing a budget that does not live within our means.  And it should go without saying -There will be no sales or income tax of any kind on my watch.”

Sununu also used that rarely-heard word in energy-policy debates: “ratepayer.”

“I have always said we should view energy policy through the lens of the ratepayer.  And I hear a lot of talk from legislators that say YES, they will fight for lower electric rates, but then vote for legislation that raises rates and burden our citizens.  You can’t have it both ways.”

The irony is that Sununu has his own “both ways” policy on energy, calling for continued subsides of inefficient/expensive wind/solar, but targeted to benefit low-income residents.

“The Office of Strategic Initiatives and Public Utility Commission are currently working out a plan for the multi-million-dollar Clean Energy Fund which is being made available this year.  I want to see renewable energy projects for low income families and communities to be a priority for those investment dollars.”

Not exactly the policy of a full-throated free marketer, but a politically-smart position for a Republican who just survived a #BlueWave in a purple state and doesn’t want to lose a job he loves.

[To read Gov. Sununu’s entire prepared text, click here.]

So what happened in New Hampshire on Tuesday? Here are all the numbers you need to know:

RECORD SETTING TURNOUT

Total turnout was about 580,000 ballots cast, “the first time we’ve broken the half a million mark in a midterm,” Secretary of State Bill Gardner told NHJournal, “and the first time we’ve had a midterm turnout higher than any presidential primary.”

“All that, on a day when we had bad weather, too. If people have the will to vote, they will make the effort–rain or no rain.”

 

NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTERS LOVE TO SWING

There were 573,735 votes cast in the race for governor: Gov. Chris Sununu, 302,838; Democrat Molly Kelly, 262,408.

Republican Sununu’s margin over Democrat Kelly: 40,430.

A total of 560,034 votes were cast for the major-party Congressional candidates: 310,320 for the two Democrats; 249,714 for the two Republicans.

The Pappas/Kuster margin over Edwards/Negron: 60,606.

That’s a 100,000 “swing vote” margin just in the top-tier races–about 18 percent of voters split their tickets for governor and Congress.

Or put another way, Republican Chris Sununu outperformed the two GOP congressional candidates by 53,000 votes, while Molly Kelly underperformed her Democratic colleagues by 48,000.

“It’s not that unusual, actually,” Gardner told NHJournal. “When Ronald Reagan ran in 1980, he won New Hampshire by a 2-1 margin. The same year, the Democrat running for governor won 2-1, too.”

(NHJournal checked, and Gardner was right: Reagan got 58 percent of the vote in New Hampshire in 1980, and incumbent Democratic governor Hugh Gallen got 59 percent.)

 

GOP TURNOUT WAS GOOD. DEMOCRATIC TURNOUT WAS BETTER

“The Democrats did an unbelievable job of drilling down into the lower-tier GOTV universes,” Greg Moore, Executive Director of Americans for Prosperity-New Hampshire, told NHJournal. “Net-net, they brought out 320,000 of their folks and the conservatives brought out 260,000.

“To put that into perspective, Eddie Edwards in the NH-01 race got 6,000 more votes than Republican Frank Guinta did in 2014–and Guinta won by 9,000 votes. Edwards lost by 24,000.”

 

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT. AND MOSTLY DEMOCRAT.

Billionaire Tom Steyer has been bragging for more than a year about the $1 million or so he planned to spend in New Hampshire getting college students out of their dorms and into the polls. His organization NextGen America had almost 40 paid workers covering the campuses, and according to NextGen’s New Hampshire comms person Kristen Morris, it worked. She tweeted:

 

THE GOP NEEDED A BIGGER WIN BY SUNUNU

It’s easy after a wave election–and that’s certainly what happened in New Hampshire–to simply be grateful the party held onto the governor’s office. But several NHGOP pros have noted that the governor’s race was closer than it should have been, and the rest of the ticket suffered.

“With a popular incumbent governor running for re-election against a hitherto unknown former state senator, Molly Kelly significantly out-raised and outspent him,” veteran GOP strategist Tom Rath told NHJournal. “And that should never happen.  Keeping the governor’s race close allowed the Democrats to make big gains down ballot.”

 

SHOW THEM THE MONEY

Final numbers aren’t in, but it’s clear that New Hampshire Democrats had a huge financial advantage, in part because of a massive amount of money donated through the ActBlue program at a national level (more than $1 billion in small-dollar donations alone), some of which made its way to New Hampshire.  And in part because Republicans did not raise the resources they needed.

“We’ve been outspent in the past,” outgoing Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley told NHJournal, “but not like this. This time it would appear our Democratic colleagues had so much money that it almost didn’t matter how they spent it.”

“Drilling down as deeply in their GOTV efforts as the Democrats did takes tons of money,” Greg Moore notes.

And GOP strategist Mike Dennehy is even more blunt: “If New Hampshire Republicans don’t figure out fundraising, they can kiss this state goodbye.”

 

ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL, NH VOTERS WANTED TO VOTE DEMOCRAT. 

At the Union-Leader, Kevin Landrigan picks up on the fascinating story of Manchester Republican Ed Sapienza.

“A lifelong Democrat, Sapienza changed his party affiliation to the GOP last spring to run for Hillsborough County Register of Deeds,” Landrigan reported. When nobody filed to run as a Democrat, some friends of Sapienza wrote him in during the primary and so his name appeared on Tuesday as both the Republican and Democratic nominee.

“In rock-ribbed Republican Merrimack for example, Sapienza the Democrat got 500 more votes than Sapienza the Republican did,” Landrigran noted.

That’s 500 more votes simply for being a Democrat.  That number pretty much sums up the 2018 midterm election in New Hampshire.

For former Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, the Manchester, NH VA Medical Center was both his high point and his downfall. Now New Hampshire officials are wondering what his legacy will be for Granite State veterans.

Within hours of President Trump’s tweet announcing that he was firing Shulkin and replacing him with White House physician Navy Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson, NH Rep. Carol Shea-Porter tweeted:

The next Secretary must protect the VA healthcare system from efforts to dismantle it. In August of last year, Secretary Shulkin made commitments to New Hampshire veterans. I still expect those commitments to be met. Anything less is unacceptable.

— Rep. Shea-Porter (@RepSheaPorter) March 28, 2018

Among those commitments: $30 million in new spending on the Manchester VA Medical Center–a high-profile pledge he made in Manchester, surrounded by state leaders, just weeks after firing the top two local VA officials.  Gov. Chris Sununu and other political leaders said they were pleased with the reform efforts of Secretary Shulkin. “It’s a new day, ” Shea-Porter said at the time. Manchester appeared to be a big win for Shulkin.

Unfortunately it also played a cameo role in his ouster. The VA secretary was unable to shake the consequences of expensive (and questionable) taxpayer funded travel.  According to a damning Inspector General’s report, when confronted about apparently light, tourism-friendly schedule on an official trip to Copenhagen, Shulkin defended himself by pointing to the time he spent “handling of matters relating to a media crisis that developed relating to allegations of substandard care at the Manchester VA Medical Center.”

It appears Shulkin mishandled the entire “luxury travel” scandal. As USA Today reports:

He first blasted the VA inspector general’s findings that he improperly accepted Wimbledon tickets and airfare for his wife during the 10-day junket. He then refused to accept the determination that his chief of staff misled ethics officials to get clearance for his wife’s airfare, suggesting instead that her email had been hacked. Shulkin later expressed regret and repaid the cost of the tickets and airfare. But he also complained that the appointees were targeting and undermining him.

That’s not what President Trump wanted to hear. But it could be music to the ears of VA reformers urging that veteran’s health services be handled by the private sector, the so-called “privatization” issue. A source close to VA leadership told NHJournal:

“Shulkin enjoyed tremendous support from the Veterans Service Organizations because they knew he wouldn’t privatize. Veterans are proud of their service and the benefits they’ve earned.  VA Healthcare is one of those benefits.”

Privatization is also clearly on the minds of New Hampshire’s politicians. Rep. Annie Kuster posted on her FB page:

I was disappointed by the misuse of taxpayer dollars by Secretary Shulkin that eroded the trust of the American people. Unfortunately, I have serious concerns that his firing today will strengthen efforts to privatize operations within the Department of Veterans Affairs. I’ve spoken with many Granite State veterans who fear the loss of camaraderie and the full recognition of their veteran status that comes with receiving care at the VA.

Privatization of the VA health system has long been the goal of economic conservatives, but they’ve always lacked the political support to get it done. It seems highly unlikely that the new VA Secretary, a White House doctor with a military background, is going to lead that ideological charge.

 

A union representing prison guards is urging state officials to renew a labor contract as part of an ongoing effort to address a severe staffing shortage at state prisons.

Teamsters Local 633 represents more than 380 state correctional officers. The union launched the “Safe Prisons, Safe New Hampshire” campaign this past June. The campaign is aimed at raising public awareness of the staffing shortage faced by the state corrections system.

The campaign on social media has included near-daily tweets and Facebook posts tagging Governor Chris Sununu. The union is also encouraging others to contact his office. The online campaign has found support from opponents of Sununu, including state Democratic Party chairman Ray Buckley and Democratic Rep. Sherry Frost.

Contract talks between the state government and Local 633 originally began in fall of 2016 but came to a halt in March. Since July 1, state correctional officers have been working without a contract. Mediation between the state government and Local 633’s negotiating team now features a ‘fact finder’ to ensure a fair contract is reached.

In a statement provided to NH Journal, Jeffrey Padellaro, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 633, said correctional officers are “routinely forced to work three to four 16-hour shifts per week.” According to Padellaro, officers have put in nearly 12,000 overtime work hours in 2017.

“We are seeking a contract that addresses the prison staffing crisis at New Hampshire state prisons,” Padellaro said. “Dangerously low staffing levels mean our correction officers are working excessive amounts of forced overtime – which is creating safety concerns and putting enormous strain on officers.”

He added this situation affects not only the correctional officers but the prisoners, as well, who have seen their visits and activities cut short due to coverage issues. These shortage issues come as Department of Corrections Commissioner William Wrenn announced that he is stepping down in November.

Padellaro said the Concord Prison for Men has 187 uniformed staff, nearly 100 officers less than it would take to “maintain critical operations” and 200 officers less than “to operate at a normal activity level.” Padellaro added that the state has lost six officers over the past two years despite the state’s recruitment efforts.

Local 633 said the absence of a contract has also delayed the planned opening of the New Hampshire Correctional Facility for Women in Concord. Padellaro said the facility is near completion and ready for occupancy but will require 74 officers to staff while the state legislature has only authorized funds to hire for 55 officers.

One factor to the hiring shortage is the starting salaries for state correctional officers, which are $10,000 less than the average starting pay at local police departments. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median income for correctional officers in New Hampshire is $42,820. Officers at Federal Correction Institute, Berlin – New Hampshire’s lone federal prison – and those working in correctional facilities in Massachusetts make almost $22,000 more than New Hampshire state officers.

“It’s an investment worth making,” Padellaro said. “Investing in hard-working corrections officers is a far better use of taxpayer dollars – and is more cost effective – than paying for excessive forced overtime and high turnover as a result of officers leaving for better positions.”

In addition to the staffing crisis, overcrowding has remained a problem for the state prison system. There are five state prison facilities in New Hampshire. According to the New Hampshire Department of Corrections, last year the state prison population was 2,631, nearly double the amount since 1990.

“This is a prison safety crisis, and a prison safety crisis is a public safety concern,” Padellaro said.

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It’s never too early to be thinking about the 2018 midterm elections. For the incumbent party in the White House, it usually means losing seats. However, Republicans are poised to retain control of the House and Senate, barring any major catastrophe, which would give Democrats the advantage.

In New Hampshire, it could mean tough races for Democratic incumbent Reps. Carol Shea-Porter and Annie Kuster, and their final campaign finance filings for the 2016 election cycle can provide clues on what to expect for their reelection campaigns.

Assuming they run again for their seats, Kuster and Shea-Porter enter the 2018 contests with a significant difference between them in their total cash on hand.

Shea-Porter only has approximately $3,800 in the bank as a result of a tough election against former Republican Rep. Frank Guinta and Independent candidate Shawn O’Connor. Out of the 435 representatives in the House, she has the fifth lowest cash on hand total.

Kuster, on the other hand, sits modestly with just over $1 million stashed away.

The median amount that lawmakers who won their races in 2016 have in the bank is about $367,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a nonpartisan research group tracking money and lobbying in elections. Specifically for House candidates, it’s about $361,000.

Of course, for party leaders they have the biggest war chests since they are expected to raise money to help their colleagues. House Speaker Paul Ryan had the highest cash on hand in the House with $9.1 million.

“The typical pattern is that campaigns that are in tough reelections or open seat battles will almost never have any money left,” said Caleb Burns, a partner at Wiley Rein LLP, to the CRP. “But conversely, the opposite is also true, where members of Congress have extraordinarily safe seats and don’t feel the pressure of having to raise a lot of money.”

That’s especially true for New Hampshire’s representatives. Kuster was assumed to have a relatively safe seat in the Granite State’s 2nd Congressional District, while Shea-Porter in the 1st Congressional District was always going to have a tough time ousting Guinta.

So what does this mean going into next year’s race?

Well, it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) included Shea-Porter and Kuster in their initial 36-member target list.

Kuster spent nearly $2.2 million against Republican challenger Jim Lawrence. He spent less than $100,000, and yet, Kuster only defeated Lawrence by 5 percent, 50-45 percent, respectively, with Libertarian John Babiarz receiving 5 percent. The NRCC figures that if they can recruit a decent candidate and put a little money into the race, they could have a chance at ousting Kuster.

For Shea-Porter, the 1st Congressional District is always a toss up, mostly because it’s been a Shea-Porter versus Guinta contest every two years since 2010. The NRCC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee usually throw a decent amount of funds toward the district’s candidates. It also helps the NRCC that Shea-Porter has been kicked out by voters before and she defeated Guinta in a crowded field. She won by a margin of 162,080 to 156,176, while independents O’Connor and Brendan Kelly and Libertarian Robert Lombardo garnered a total of 46,316 votes among them, possibly to the detriment of Guinta.

However, Republicans swept the 1st District in every other federal race. Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by about 6,000 votes, former Sen. Kelly Ayotte beat Sen. Maggie Hassan also by about 6,000 votes, and Gov. Chris Sununu defeated former Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern by about 18,000 votes. With the right candidate, the NRCC believes they can flip the district again.

Any ideas on who’s going to run against Shea-Porter or Kuster?

As recently as Wednesday, one Republican has indicated that he’s “seriously” interested in challenging Shea-Porter in the 1st District.

John Burt, a four-term New Hampshire House member from Goffstown, told WMUR that he has spoken with conservatives throughout the state and region about running for Congress. He said he hopes to make a final decision in the coming weeks.

“I have no doubt that I can beat Carol Shea-Porter,” he said. “In 2018, it’s going to be another 2010-type sweep of Republicans heading to D.C. and also to the New Hampshire State House.”

Other Republicans being talked about as possible candidates include state Sen. Andy Sanborn from Bedford and former state commissioner of the Department of Health and Human Services John Stephen, who is also a former gubernatorial and congressional candidate.

Don’t be surprised if Guinta makes another run for the seat he lost. Neither Shea-Porter nor Guinta ruled out running again in 2018 if they lost.

Earlier this month, the DCCC made Kuster the chair of its “Frontline” incumbent retention program, which gives special attention to vulnerable Democratic incumbents, so they must feel confident that she can win again in 2018.

However, former state Rep. Joe Sweeney of Salem previously told WMUR that he is “in the very early portion of exploring a run” for the 2nd District against Kuster.

“I firmly believe that Congresswoman Kuster does not adequately represent the district, and her performance and voting record presents a winnable path,” he said.

Senate President Chuck Morse could also be a potential candidate. The Salem senator is listed on the National Governors Association’s website as a former governor of New Hampshire. He served as acting governor for two days from January 3 to 5, when former Gov. Hassan resigned early to be sworn in as U.S. Senator. The New Hampshire Union Leader sees him as an option for Republican Party operatives still looking for a candidate.

Voters shouldn’t rule out seeing the two Republican frontrunners from the 2nd District GOP primary on the ballot either. Former House Majority Leader Jack Flanagan from Brookline indicated that he was hearing from supporters to run again in 2018. He lost the GOP primary to Lawrence by about 5,000 votes. Also, with Lawrence’s close finish to Kuster in the general election, he heard calls from supporters to consider yet another run. If he did, this would be his third congressional bid in six years.

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Pollsters were heavily criticized after the presidential election for completely missing the mark on their predictions. Across the country, they were scratching their heads, trying to figure out how they didn’t see Republican Donald Trump defeating Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton.

Even the University of New Hampshire Survey Center had to take a step back and figure out what went wrong for them. In their last Granite State Poll before the November election, they predicted an 11-point victory for Clinton. She actually won New Hampshire by four-tenths of a percentage point, 47.6 to 47.2 percent.

Their last survey also had Democrat Colin Van Ostern beating Republican Chris Sununu by 11 percent, 55 to 44 percent, for the governor’s office. Sununu beat Van Ostern by 2 percent.

For many political strategists in the state, these way-off predictions confirmed their suspicions that the UNH survey is a “bad poll.” Even WikiLeaks exposed that the Clinton campaign didn’t think much of them.

“As always, this poll doesn’t have a good history of accuracy so we need to take it with a grain of salt,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook wrote to Clinton about a recent UNH pre-primary poll May 5, 2015.

“The state of survey research is not static and there are a lot of technological changes and problems,” said UNH Survey Center director Andrew Smith. “We do an analysis after each election to look for biases that come into the surveys.”

Smith said he believes he found the reason why his numbers were so off during the election and he tweaked his methodology to reflect that in his most recent UNH poll released this week.

In his past polls, he would weight the sample based on age, sex, and region of the state, in addition to the number of adults and telephone lines within households.  Often pollsters will weight their samples to adjust for oversampling and undersampling of key demographics. For example, more women than men, and more older people than younger people, answer polls in the Granite State, Smith said.

Now, Smith added level of education into the mix.

“It’s a difficult variable to use and in the past it didn’t have that much political correlation when we used it, so it didn’t make a difference statistically,” he told NH Journal. “However, we saw that in this election, the percentage of people with a college education make a significant difference, and had we weighted it going into the election, we would have been dead accurate on all of the results.”

This election showed that Trump won the support of white, blue collar workers with some college education or less. He also over-performed in rural areas, while Clinton did better in more wealthy suburban areas.

Smith said he found that men with some college education, known as the Trump coalition, were not participating in the UNH surveys as much as they did when it came time to vote.

“It’s a new phenomena in New Hampshire politics,” he said. “Is it due to Trump? Probably, but it certainly made a difference in our polls. Hopefully, our methods are improved.”

The UNH Survey Center released four polls since February 10. The first one, released last Friday, was on Trump’s approval ratings in the Granite State, which found that residents are pretty divided on the president.

Forty-three percent of adults said they approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 48 percent are disapproving of his performance, and 8 percent are neutral, the poll found.

These numbers are close to the national trend. The Pew Research Center released Thursday the findings of its survey, which found 39 percent approve of his job performance, while 56 percent disapprove.

Looking at the different regions of the state, his approval rating also varies. This is where it will be interesting to keep an eye on the UNH Survey Center to see if their new weighting of education level has an impact on the data.

In the Central/Lakes, Connecticut Valley, and Manchester area, his approval ranges from 32 to 39 percent. Along the Massachusetts border, on the Seacoast, and in the North Country, his approval rating is more positive.

“It’s not surprising anymore,” Smith said. “Democratic political strength in the central part of the state and Connecticut River Valley is still there and Republicans have been strong in Massachusetts border towns and somewhat strong in the Greater Manchester area, like in Bedford.”

Smith said he found the political dynamics of the North Country interesting because that area is becoming more Republican. For years, it used to be an area of Democratic strength due to blue collar support for Democrats with union support.

“The character and self-identification of the people in the North Country is different than the rest of the state,” he said. “They have not been doing well economically and the Democratic Party has been having difficulty holding onto these blue collar people.”

As exhibited by Trump’s win, many of these blue collar workers in New Hampshire, and in other states across the country, lent their support to the president.

“All we are seeing right now is a group of people who are quasi-Republicans, who might not have participated in politics before, or turned out greater in number, but we’ll have to see how that plays out in the next several years,” Smith said.

The other polls released this week showed that the drug crisis is still the number one issue for residents in the state, Gov. Sununu has similar approval ratings at the start of his term as his predecessors, and all of New Hampshire’s congressional delegation have positive approval ratings.

 

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