In New Hampshire college towns like Durham and Keene, Democratic candidates enjoy some of the highest margins of victory in the state, in part thanks to the left-leaning politics of young, politically active students.
And under a proposal announced by Vice President Kamala Harris, some of those students will be getting federal tax dollars to help create even more registered voters in those Democrat-dominated towns.
At a “Meeting with Voting Rights Leaders to Discuss the Fight for Voting Rights and Other Fundamental Freedoms,” as the White House labeled it, Harris touted the administration’s “work to promote voter participation for students.”
“For example, under the federal work-study program, we now allow students to get paid, through federal work-study, to register people and to be nonpartisan poll workers.”
The new policy is part of President Joe Biden’s 2021 “Promoting Access to Voting” executive order. On Monday, the Department of Education issued an advisory explaining how federal tax dollars can be used to pay students to register other students to vote. The money will be drawn out of Federal Work Study (FWS) funds.
House Majority Leader Jason Osborne (R-Auburn) said progressive students getting paid to register voters could also prompt another outcome.
“How else are they going to register the millions of illegal immigrants the Biden administration is letting pour over our borders?” Osborne quipped. “I can tell you one question these students won’t be asking — “Are you a United States citizen?”
This taxpayer-funded effort is particularly significant in the Granite State, which has the highest per capita population of college students in the nation. A recent study performed by an academic citation company named TypeCite found college students comprise 14 percent of New Hampshire’s population.
“Voting is fundamental to our democracy, and our schools and colleges play an important role in helping our students become active participants in our democratic society,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement Monday.
And while the Biden administration’s advisory states “such work is neither associated with any faction in election for public or party office, nor constitutes political activity,” Granite State Republicans aren’t buying it.
“Curious how they chose college students and not veterans,” state Rep. Ross Berry (R-Manchester), chairman of the House Committee on Election Law, said when asked about the new program. “Almost like this is just a scheme to register Democrats and not actually increase participation of all voters.
“In most states, the areas they are targeting already have these programs under the National Voter Registration Act, so why the sudden interest in injecting college students? I think we know the answer.”
Fergus Cullen, former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee who resides in the same town (Dover) as the University of New Hampshire, also questioned the approach.
“If your electoral strategy depends on limiting or increasing participation among college students, maybe you should be working harder to find better candidates with broader appeal,” he said.
While New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley declined to comment, the numbers portray a clear picture of the partisan politics at play.
In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden defeated Republican Donald Trump in New Hampshire by just under eight points (52.7 to 45.4 percent).
But in Plymouth, home of Plymouth State University, Biden beat Trump 66 to 33 percent — a two-to-one margin. In Keene, where Keene State University can be found, Biden took 70 percent of the vote. And in the home of the UNH Wildcats, more than 78 percent of the voters of Durham backed Biden in 2020.
Regardless of the motive behind using work-study funding to find new voters, the net outcome is all but certain to benefit Democrats over Republicans.
The Biden administration will also be paying those students to work the polls on election day as well.
“This work can include supporting broad-based get-out-the-vote activities, voter registration, providing voter assistance at a polling place or through a voter hotline, or serving as a poll worker,” according to the administration.
“Who trusts this administration to be competent and non-partisan? Nobody,” said NHGOP state chair Chris Ager. “We can handle this just fine ourselves, thank you.”
NH NextGen staffers count “Maggies- a reference to Sen. Maggie Hassan — during their 2018 voter outreach.
In 2016, NexGen America — an outfit funded by billionaire liberal activist Tom Steyer — credited college student voters with giving Democrat Maggie Hassan the 1,017 vote margin of victory needed to oust Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte. In fact, during the 2018 midterms, Next Gen’s New Hampshire media manager Kristen Morris measured NextGen’s success in registering voters in units of “Maggie Hassans,” each equal to 1,017.
Chloe Ezzo, a 2023 Dartmouth College graduate who served as president of Dartmouth Republicans, told NHJournal, “Kamala Harris’ new program is a last-ditch effort to shore up support in one of the Democrat’s key demographics: young people. For anyone who claims that this is non-partisan, the Democrats obviously wouldn’t be investing this money if they thought it would help register young Republicans.”
Ezzo cited her time as a Dartmouth student and said the results of the new program will be “especially egregious” in the college town of Hanover. She observed that Dartmouth “attracts far-left activists from all over the country.”
“These students live in Hanover for only four years, have little to no interaction with the local community, vote in New Hampshire elections, and leave longtime New Hampshire residents with the consequences.”
Biden carried Hanover in 2020 with 88 percent of the vote.
