NH in 2020 has made a significant shift to the right with the Republican Party now holding not only the Governor’s office but also wielding control of the Executive Council, State Senate, and the State House.
In the week following the NH Primary back in September, I published a piece at American Thinker which laid out the historical data trends in election results since the state’s “Democratic Peak” back in 2008 which showed how with every subsequent cycle since then, support had increased for the Republican candidate and decreased for the Democrat candidate in a fairly consistent manner, including for Sen. Shaheen and the Congressional Districts (i.e. the Democrats won by less each and every time). That article was also highlighted in a cross-posted piece here on GraniteGrok as well.
This shift was entirely predictable. My article presenting the trends in party preferences was about as controversial as if I were to say, “It is 4pm and the temperature has dropped 1 degree per hour for the last 3 hours, so at 5pm the temperature should be 1 degree lower than it is now.” (Puts away tooting horn) Point being, there was a clear and obvious trend occurring here for over a decade and it continued on it’s path, as evidenced by our entire state government having gone completely red as of November 3rd, 2020.
(Needle-scratch sound)
Wait just a minute now, didn’t all the federal races in NH do the exact opposite?! Well, yes, that is the other side of the headline for the NH general election. The races for President, Senate, and both Congressional Districts ended up with Democrat winners. So, what gives? How can these polar opposite party preferences co-exist; is NH really that “purple” of a state? In the final Paragraph of my original piece at American Thinker I indicated that a post-election data review of our state might be in order.
“When it comes to data trends and predictive value, recentness matters, and all the most recent trends indicate an impending crossing of the vote threshold where the pendulum swings New Hampshire back into the red side of the spectrum. This movement would favor President Trump in the general election…(t)hough, depending on the outcomes of the down-ballot races, where the Granite State will choose three of our four national representatives to send to Washington, D.C., could it indicate an end of the state’s foray into blue state status? To properly evaluate that trend, we will have to wait for the next set of numbers to crunch after November 3.”
Considering this curious result of the federal races going one direction and the state races going another ,it seems like a deeper dive into the numbers could give us some insight to the phenomenon we have witnessed, and we can do that here at the GraniteGrok in a multipart series. In reference to other states, where Biden appears to have won the presidential race but the senate and house seats stayed or went Republican, Sen. Mitt Romney offers us the explanation that Republicans were still Republicans but just hated Trump that much to vote against him, and only him. Maybe Mitt, or maybe not. Either way, that still is not what happened here in NH with Messner, Mowers, and Negron all taking the “L”.
New Hampshire has a different story to tell, and the data should help spell out that story for us.
To be continued.
