geeky
New Hampshire is a very diverse state politically. It has a mix of ideologies, containing libertarians and Republican traditionalists, but it is also proximate to liberal Massachusetts and is reached by the media there. The state has a growing high-tech industry, and the state is also home to Dartmouth College and other post-secondary educational institutions.
The state has a Democratic governor and equally splits its two senators and two representatives between the two parties. Its voters have backed Democrats for president in every election since 2000, when they went for Republican George W. Bush by a margin of less than two2%. If Al Gore had won the state that year, all that controversy in Florida wouldn't have mattered.
For months of polling, Hillary Clinton enjoyed around a 7% lead. But recent polling shows a much tighter race today. Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com puts Clinton's odds of winning the state at 64%, but in its aggregate compilation of polls, RealClealPolitics has Donald Trump ahead in the state by 1.5%.
It was here in the primaries, that Trump won his first victory. Many say that the state is fertile electoral ground for him because of its high percentage of white residents without college degrees. Clinton's history with the state goes back to the 1992 election when her husband won the primary there and was dubbed the “comeback kid”. The state voted for Bill Clinton in both of his White House races.
An important senate race in also taking place in New Hampshire between Republican Kelly Ayotte and Democrat Maggie Hassan, and that race is proving to be very close as well. It could decide which party controls the US legislative chamber in 2017. Ayotte is not supporting her party's candidate for president. Last month, after Trump's lewd sexual comments made in a 2005 video came to light, Ayotte said that as a mother and a former prosecutor who had worked with victims, she could no longer vote for Trump. She has said that she will write in Mike Pence's name for president.
The Clinton campaign and its PACs have spent $28 million on television ads in the state compared with $9 million from Trump. Clinton has held rallies in the state with neighboring senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and her daughter, Chelsea, was campaigning there yesterday, encouraging students and young people to vote. President Barack Obama will be campaigning in New Hampshire the day before the Nov. 8 election.
New Hampshire is a state where voters can register right up until the moment they cast their ballot. As is has done in the past, the state once more is keeping the nation in suspense.