The Granite State has done it again: It has a 42-seat Republican majority in the State House, a 2/3 Republican supermajority in the State Senate, and a 4-1 Republican majority on the state’s executive council. The governor is Republican, Kelly Ayotte – but we sent two Democrats to Congress and chose Kamala Harris over Donald Trump.
We keep doing that, and it makes no sense. Maybe it makes more sense than how Kamala lost 15 million Joe Biden voters. Dem support for a pasty old white guy who disappeared when the woman of color ran. Add all the Dems who switched to Trump, and the racist misogyny narrative appears to be pointed in the wrong direction.
So, maybe the New Hampshire thing is as normal as that? – as normal as how the electoral map would look if the National Popular Vote had its way. You remember them. They’ve been trying to erase the relevance of the Electoral College by allotting all electors based on the popular vote.
Trump won the popular vote, and someone took the time to show us how it would have gone in that circumstance. Trump 520 to Harris 18.
Bwahahaha!
Virginia and New Hampshire are blue.
803,600 votes were cast between the two congressional races, but only 502,245 were cast for governor, with 821,848 for President.
Eighteen thousand votes lost interest in the congressional seats, and 300,000 could care less who the governor is.
Trump lost in NH by roughly 3.8 points. The spread in CD 1 was 8 points, and in CD2, it was 6 points.
Republican governor Ayotte won by 9 points, and Republicans piled on seats in every other category, so Democrats didn’t vote down the ticket(?). I imagine them being more disciplined, though I have argued in the past that the out-of-state student vote is likely the reason for these disparities. They vote the top three and escape to their dorm – often on busses provided to bring them to and fro. But you’re there; why not take a few minutes to complete the sweep?
Trump had 23,000 fewer votes than Harris in New Hampshire. That’s not enough to keep Ayotte from beating Joyce Craig (she’d need another 75,000+ votes), but how many state House and Senate seats can they claim with those votes unless they are limited to college towns where Dems already clean up?
We’ll never know, and maybe none but something stinks again, and I’m wondering what needs to happen to clear that air.
