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As promised, newly-elected Speaker of the House Steve Shurtleff began the process of banning guns from the House chamber Wednesday morning with a 6-4 vote by the Rules Committee to amend house rules to prohibit the carrying of firearms in Representatives’ Hall.  And, as is often the case, Democrats say they’re doing it “for the children.”

While he acknowledged the existing policy of allowing armed citizens and legislators into the House chamber has never created a problem, Shurtleff says he’s concerned about school kids.   “In addition to being the place we make laws, it’s also a classroom. We have fourth graders coming in to view us in session and I think like any classroom we don’t want firearms present,” Shurtleff said.

Democratic State Rep. Lucy Weber took the argument a step farther during the Rules Committee debate. “There has been a chilling effect on willingness of schools to send their kids here,” Rep. Weber claimed.

Rep. Dick Hinch (R-Merrimack), leader of the GOP House minority, pushed back against that claim, saying it is “unfair and inaccurate to say that fourth graders have been in any way impacted by this. I have not seen any school grade that has felt inhibited about coming for a school tour,” the Union-Leader reports.

Hinch also objected to the ban in general, saying in a statement that “by removing this basic right, we are effectively making the chamber a gun-free zone and less safe environment for our colleagues.”

Since a GOP-controlled House first revoked the ban in 2011, House rules on the matter have changed along with changes in party control of the legislature.   In addition to turning the House chamber into a gun-free zone, Shurtleff told NHPR that, if the gun ban went into effect, he would ask the Department of Safety to increase the State Police presence at House Chamber.

The response to the committee vote from Republicans and Second Amendment supporters was immediate.  “The ink is barely dry on their oaths of office and they’re already trampling the constitution,” former state representative JR Hoell of the New Hampshire Firearms Coalition told NHJournal.

“This is the Democrats’ first shot fired in their battle against the Second Amendment. The most important aspect of this vote is that they are telling us they don’t trust their fellow legislators to have firearms. If that’s how they feel about their fellow politicians, how do you think they feel about the rest of us,” Hoell asked. “Their next step is to ban [the rights of] citizens.”

And a tweet from the NHGOP noted the irony of Speaker Shurteff taking away guns from law-abiding citizens then asking for more police protection: “Think about this logically. The @NHDems want extra protection when they ban guns around them, conceding they keep people safe. Is Speaker Shurtleff going to ask for extra protection when he walks around town, too?”

Former Speaker Bill O’Brien, who led the GOP’s first successful effort to repeal the ban, told NHJournal that suggestions about children being too scared to come to the state house were laughable.  “The number of children visiting the State House hasn’t changed at all over the years, with or without the ban.  What we have here is an exercise in virtue signaling,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien agrees with his fellow Republicans who are concerned about anti-Second Amendment activism from the new Democratic majority in Concord. “Democratic legislators will be playing to their base, not serving the people of New Hampshire,” he told NHJournal.  “They’ve got to show [anti-gun billionaires] Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer that all the money they sent up here wasn’t wasted.”

“My friends in the pro-2A [Second Amendment] community are telling me that, from their perspective, nothing the Democrats might try next would surprise them.”

Earlier this week the progressive group MoveOn.org released results of a straw poll of its members on the 2020 potential Democratic lineup.  The outcome inspired a bit of media buzz when progressive rock star (complete with fog machine) Rep. Beto O’Rourke outpaced the entire field.

It turns out MoveOn.org isn’t the only progressive group polling its members. You can go to Democracy for America’s webpage right now and pick your top three 2020 candidates. DFA is a progressive group originally founded by Howard Dean and is best known today for its support of Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Their list, by the way, includes three people who just lost their own elections in 2018: Rep. O’Rourke, Georgia’s Stacey Abrams and Florida’s Andrew Gillum.

See the entire list of 2018 potential candidates by clicking here

Meanwhile the far-Left group People’s Action has announced they’ll be polling their members in 2019, and they are already organizing candidate forums–including one in Durham, NH on October 14 hosted by their local arm, Rights & Democracy NH– to push POTUS candidates towards progressive issues.

Thrilled to announce we will be co-hosting a Presidential Candidate Forum in Durham NH on October 14, 2019 with @PplsAction & @NHYouthMovement! #nhpolitics #2020election https://t.co/Q7qwuVVC09

— Rights & Democracy (@RightsNH) December 12, 2018

And liberal billionaire Tom Steyer’s organization NextGen America is also powering up, both the support his now-likely candidacy and to pressure candidates to embrace far-Left positions like carbon taxes and socialized medicine, as well as their insistence that Democrats must impeach President Trump.

All of these efforts motivate the base to get involved. Doing well in these early progressive polls is a good way to give your candidacy a push among primary voters. And in the Ocasio-Cortez era, attending these events is all but mandatory.

At the same time, the motivated base in turns “motivates” candidates to embrace the party’s more out-of-the-mainstream policies.  And thus far, running for president on the far Left has proven a losing strategy. President Barack Obama governed as a liberal progressive, but during the campaign he went to great lengths to avoid the label–claiming to oppose both a single-payer healthcare system and legalizing same-sex marriage, for example. The last politician to run as a full-throated liberal on a major-party ticket was Walter Mondale (maybe) and George McGovern (definitely).  They each carried one state.

One.

Progressive candidates didn’t do particularly well in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary last September. The more moderate candidates in the high-profile races won handily. It could be that New Hampshire’s Democratic voters just aren’t on the same page as their more progressive counterparts in, say, Massachusetts, California or New York.  Moderate Democrats like Joe Biden, former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) might do well here.

But with progressive “voting” starting today, and after a year’s worth of MoveOn/DFA/OFA/People’s Action organizing, by the time the FITN primary rolls around, there may not be any moderates left.

In a straw poll of MoveOn.org activists, one-time darling of the movement Sen. Elizabeth Warren finished a distant fifth with less than 7 percent of the vote, giving her less than half the support of either Rep. Beto O’Rourke (16 percent) or former Vice President Joe Biden (15 percent). Finishing out the top five were Sen. Bernie Sanders (13 percent) and Sen. Kamala Harris (10 %).

The top vote-getter among MoveOn.Org members was “Someone Else/Don’t Know with 18 percent support. Straw polls are not scientific, but this one reflects what NHJournal is hearing from grassroots Democrats, who say they are in no hurry to pick a candidate and are looking forward to the campaign season.

“I can’t really name more than one or two people who are backing a candidate,” one Granite State Democratic insider told NHJournal. “Everybody else wants to be courted a little I think.”

A popular meme among MoveOn.org supporters in 2015.

That may be, but it’s hard not to compare Sen. Warren’s soaring stature among MoveOn.org progressives four years ago–they literally spent $1 million attempting to get her to #RunWarrenRun–as opposed to the lack of enthusiasm today.  It’s true that when MoveOn.org presented Warren with 365,000 signed petitions, there weren’t nearly as many potential progressive candidates as there are today.  At the same time, if she’s made a positive impact on these activists over the past four years, she wouldn’t be struggling to get them on board.

Instead, her actions thus far have driven people away. Her DNA stunt, for example. Here’s Tina Nguyen in the liberal magazine Vanity Fair:

The stunt was meant to put Warren on the offensive—a pre-emptive strike to head off a presumed weakness in her autobiography—but instead betrayed a sense of defensiveness that Trump and his allies quickly seized on. It rubbed Native Americans the wrong way, made some liberals queasy, and worst of all, reeked of the sort of consultant-driven, Clintonian groupthink that drove 2016 voters crazy. It was the sort of misstep that politicians make when they are trying too hard—and, perhaps, when they’re worried about the competition breathing down their necks.

Whether it’s “trying to hard” or, as the Boston Globe suggested, “missing her moment,” Sen. Warren’s currently headed in the wrong direction. Here are the entire results of the MoveOn.Org straw poll:

Someone Else / Don’t Know 17.89%
Beto O’Rourke 15.60%
Joe Biden 14.95%
Bernie Sanders 13.15%
Kamala Harris 10.02%
Elizabeth Warren 6.42%
Sherrod Brown 2.92%
Amy Klobuchar 2.75%
Michael Bloomberg 2.71%
Cory Booker 2.63%
Joseph Kennedy III 1.90%
Stacey Abrams 1.16%
Kirsten Gillibrand 1.09%
Tulsi Gabbard 0.78%
John Hickenlooper 0.71%
Eric Holder 0.59%
Eric Swalwell 0.54%
Julián Castro 0.48%
Jeff Merkley 0.42%
Jay Inslee 0.38%
Andrew Gillum 0.36%
Mitch Landrieu 0.35%
Chris Murphy 0.33%
Tom Steyer 0.28%
Marianne Williamson 0.26%
Deval Patrick 0.24%
Eric Garcetti 0.20%
Richard Ojeda 0.18%
Steve Bullock 0.17%
Pete Buttigieg 0.12%
John Delaney 0.11%
Bill de Blasio 0.10%
Howard Schultz 0.10%
Terry McAuliffe 0.10%

In a Facebook post Thursday morning, two-term Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick made it official: He will not be running for president in 2020.

“After a lot of conversation, reflection and prayer, I’ve decided that a 2020 campaign for president is not for me. I’ve been overwhelmed by advice and encouragement from people from all over the country, known and unknown,” Patrick wrote.  “But knowing that the cruelty of our elections process would ultimately splash back on people whom Diane and I love, but who hadn’t signed up for the journey, was more than I could ask.”

In doing so, Patrick confirmed the suspicions of some doubters who questioned whether the famously thin-skinned governor was prepared for the rough-and-tumble of a national campaign–particularly one that might involve taking on Donald Trump. Patrick was known for angry outbursts over relatively mild media criticism and personal animosity against members of the press. As Jon Keller, the well-respected political reporter at Boston’s CBS affiliate put it in 2012:  “Deval Patrick has a lot of attributes, but thick skin is not one of them.”

Director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center David Paleologos tells NHJournal that Patrick was “one of ten strong Democrats who had a path to score Democratic Primary victories in the three early states and to ultimately take on President Trump.”  According to Paleologos, the immediate beneficiaries of his decision are his fellow New Englanders  Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and African-American candidates, “especially Cory Booker.”

In his Facebook statement, Patrick said he believes “Democrats have a clear chance not just to win [people’s] votes but to win their respect and earn their help by showing up everywhere, engaging everyone, and making our case.”

“America feels more ready than usual for big answers to our big challenges. That’s an exciting moment that I hope we don’t miss. I hope to help in whatever way I can. It just won’t be as a candidate for president,” Patrick said.

Multiple media reports confirm that former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick will not be running for president in 2020, despite having started a successful political PAC and Patrick’s standing as the top pick inside ObamaWorld.

“If true, this news takes off the board one of ten strong Democrats who had a path to score Democratic primary victories in the three early states and to ultimately take on President Trump,” David Paleologos, Director
of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, told InsideSources.  “The windfall beneficiaries regionally are Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.  Among African-American voters, especially men, Corey Booker benefits.”

Patrick, a two-term Democrat who made the counter-intuitive move to Bain Capital—the same company Democrats vilified due to its connection to another former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney—has spoken openly about considering a 2020 POTUS bid and the “encouragement I’ve been getting from a number of places and source,” including from high-dollar Democratic donors.

In addition, Patrick’s political action committee, the Reason To Believe PAC, was a success. According to data at OpenSecrets.org, the PAC raised more than $500,000 in 2018 (NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s raised less than one-tenth that amount.) And according to the PAC’s website, “Reason To Believe endorsed 27 progressive candidates and 3 ballot initiatives. 17 won their races.”

But the most significant encouragement came from people close to former President Barack Obama. According to reporting by Politico, Obama was “nudging him to run…Patrick is ObamaWorld’s clear and away 2020 favorite.”   Close Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett in particular has been pushing a Patrick bid, calling a Deval Patrick presidency “what my heart desires.”

“Deval would make an outstanding President. He’d make a terrific candidate,” Jarrett has said.

And just weeks ago, the New Yorker ran a profile of Patrick that included the intriguing news that Michelle Obama had met with Deval’s wife Diane to encourage her to support a presidential bid.  According to their reporting, Diane did just that.

And yet Patrick is taking a pass on 2020.

There are many reasons for people not to run for office. Michael Avenatti used concerns from his family–the classic (and frequently insincere) reason for bowing out. That does not appear to be the case for Deval Patrick.

One reason, however, may have been his weakness among Democrats in his home state of Massachusetts. Patrick has never been in the top tier in national polls of potential 2020 candidates, but that’s to be expected in a field of more than 30 candidates. But a September poll of Massachusetts Democrats showing just 38 percent thought he should even run, while about 48 percent  were opposed–is hardly a ringing endorsement. And a more recent UMass poll of Bay State Democrats put the former governor in single digits.

He is expected to make a formal announcement of his decision not to run, perhaps later this week.

Lots of 2020 news for New Hampshire, starting with the departure of 2018’s Summer Superstar, Michael Avenatti.  The L.A. lawyer had an electric effect on the crowds at Democratic events in New Hampshire, and some longtime Granite State politicos had high praise for him.

Michael Avenatti works the crowd at a NH Democratic fundraiser in August, 2018.

Today, however, Avenatti announced on Twitter that he’s out of the 2020 race.

“After consultation with my family and at their request, I have decided not to seek the Presidency of the United States in 2020. I do not make this decision lightly — I make it out of respect for my family.”

In addition to his pledge to keep representing adult film actress Stormy Daniels in her legal battle with President Trump, Avenatti also reiterated something he told NHJournal in an interview over the summer:

“I remain concerned that the Democratic Party will move toward nominating an individual who might make an exceptional President but has no chance of actually beating Donald Trump,” Avenatti said. “The party must immediately recognize that many of the likely candidates are not battle-tested and have no real chance of winning. We will not prevail in 2020 without a fighter. I remain hopeful the party finds one.”

Avenatti suggested to NHJournal that the right fighter for the Democrats was…Michael Avenatti. But he’s out now, and while some are dismissing it as “dropping out before getting in,” in fact Avenatti started a political action committee– FIGHT PAC (motto: “Join the Fight Club”) and even ran an ad:

Interestingly, Avenatti was still talking up his prospects as a POTUS hopeful as recently as last night, tweeting out a national poll that had him at 2 percent and the comment “Better than Trump polled in 2015.”

Ah, but there is that whole “arrested for domestic violence” thing, so…

Oh, and about that poll Avenatti tweeted. Check it out, and look for the names “Warren” and “O’Rourke.”

That’s the Harvard/Harris poll. Here’s another version, but with Hillary Clinton added:

Notice a trend? Despite the fact that she’s been a darling of progressives for nearly a decade and he came out of nowhere over the summer, Rep. Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke is leading Sen. Elizabeth Warren in both polls.

Here’s another poll:

Aha, Warren’s beating Beto! Albeit by a point, but hey!

Wait. Check again. This is a poll of Democrats…IN MASSACHUSETTS.  Warren is essentially tied with a previously unknown congressman from Texas, in her home state. That’s not good. And smart people are starting to notice.

Harry Enten, former FiveThirtyEight numbers cruncher now at CNN, has a piece entitled “Some 2020 Warning Signs Elizabeth Warren Needs to Pay Attention to — Stat.” He points out that, not only is her polling underwhelming, but that her performance in her 2o18 re-election bid was uninspiring, too.

Is there really a bout of BetoMania spreading through the New Hampshire Democratic party?

Democratic Party activist Jay Surdukowski sure hopes so.  The Concord attorney has been pushing for the Texas congressman, Senate candidate, and political phenom to make his way to the Granite State.  Thus far, Rep. O’Rourke (whose real name is Francis Robert) hasn’t responded to any of the invitations from New Hampshire, but the conversation alone is generating news at Politico and CNBC.

(Longtime New Hampshire media hand James Pindell crankily tweeted “Didn’t realize unanswered invites were news but here we are.”)

So, is O’Rourke a real player in New Hampshire? The obvious–and obviously true–answer is that it’s way too early to say. “There’s a lot of chatter and a lot of buzz about a lot of people,” one Democratic insider told NHJournal. “Have I heard Beto’s name? Sure. I’ve also heard Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown.  Most New Hampshire Democrats are waiting to meet these people, look them in the eye, watch them campaign.”

On the other hand, how many of those people have fans posting Facebook pages about them? Or have political activists in New England start a PAC (“Draft Beto 2020”) to encourage them to run?

And then there’s the fact that, despite being a political unknown just a year ago, Rep. O’Rourke is near the top of (very early) polling for the Democratic nomination, ahead of big names like Warren, Harris and Booker.

This weekend, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard–who has actually talked about possibly running in 2020— is coming to New Hampshire to talk to voters. And yet it’s safe to say that more Democrats this week will be talking about the outgoing Congressman from Texas than the incumbent Congresswoman from Hawaii.

Why? In part it’s because O’Rourke is a legitimate political talent.  Jeff Roe, Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign manager, said after his candidate’s narrow victory over Beto: “The Democrats don’t have anybody like him,” Roe said. “I’ve seen all of them. They don’t have anyone of his caliber on the national stage. I pray for the soul of anyone who has to run against him in Iowa in 453 days.”

But it’s also more than that. O’Rourke is a talented progressive politician, at a moment when the party’s base is hungry for progressive leadership.  Bernie Sanders hit the right notes, but voting for Bernie was voting for the progressive platform alone. O’Rourke brings the Left’s ideology, but adds charisma, skills and–let’s face it–sex appeal.

“Beto is exciting, he’s articulate, he’s passionate,” New Hampshire progressive activist and broadcaster Arnie Arnesen told NHJournal.  “But he also used his time in the limelight to speak to the future. So even though he was running against one of the most hated Republicans there is, he didn’t use that fact as an excuse to moderate his message or soften his agenda.”

“And that’s a wonderful thing,” Arnesen said.

Not everyone agrees. Chicago Mayor and former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel responded to the Beto craze this way:

“If Beto O’Rourke wants to go and run for president, God bless him, he should put his hat in and make his case. But, he lost. You don’t usually promote a loser to the top of party.”

Longtime New Hampshire Democratic player Jim Demers, who has publicly expressed support for Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ),  is more moderated in his views:

“I think Beto O’Rourke has a few interesting options. Some people would like to see him run for President, others think he is in a very strong position to challenge John Cornyn for the Senate seat in Texas in 2020,” Demers told NHJournal.

“Regardless, I hope Democrats will take the pledge not to devour each other in the presidential race and to stand united when the nominee is selected. The goal is to change the occupant in The White House, period.”

Are New Hampshire Democrats ready to give that job to a guy from Texas? Whose entire political resume is three terms in Congress and a losing bid for the US Senate?

“I’m not sure I couldn’t be convinced Beto O’Rourke should be President,” the Democratic insider told NHJournal.

And given how many big Democratic names are on the 2020 list, and how little New Hampshire Democrats actually know about O’Rourke, that’s something.

“If Democrats pick Colin Van Ostern today, they are voting to elect Secretary of State [Bill] O’Brien tomorrow.”

That’s the warning of one longtime New Hampshire politico to NHJournal.com regarding Tuesday’s legislative vote for Secretary of State. Once Democrats turn the job into a plum gig for loyal partisans, it will never go back.

This is the sentiment many NH political activists and observers expressed to NHJournal as the Secretary of State election approaches.

“I hate to be alarmist, but I really believe that if New Hampshire loses its place as the ‘First in the Nation’ primary, America loses something. And if New Hampshire loses our reputation for having an even-handed, non-partisan Secretary of State, we will be in real danger of losing that primary.”

So says political consultant Josh McElveen, who has been pointing out the dangers posed by Colin Van Ostern’s openly-partisan advocacy for the office. He’s organizing a rally on Monday morning at 10:30am outside the LLB in Concord to remind legislators of what is at stake.

“If we have a Secretary of State with a partisan agenda, one who’s raised more than $250,000 dollars from partisan sources—people who gave that money with some sort of expectations—those outside of New Hampshire who want to take away our ‘First in the Nation’ status will use that against us,” McElveen told NHJournal.

Many Democrats reject the argument that electing Van Ostern in any way endangers New Hampshire’s place on the primary calendar. “Gardner did not create NH’s reputation as a state where anyone can run for President and launch a national campaign,” former New Hampshire state rep and outspoken Democratic activist Judy Reardon tweeted. “See primaries before he became SoS – 1968 (McCarthy) and 1972 (McGovern) for example.”

But the argument against Van Ostern isn’t that he’s a Democrat—Gardner is, too. Instead, the concern is over the fact that Van Ostern is a partisan political activist who was his party’s nominee for governor in 2016 and is widely expected to run for elective office in the future.

“I have kept my pledge not to use this office as a stepping stone. I’ve never run for office and I never would,” Secretary Gardner told NHJournal. “My opponent has only pledged not to run ‘in 2020.’”

At the Union-Leader, Kevin Landrigan reminds readers that Van Ostern began his campaign for the Secretary of State’s job with a pledge to “do everything in my power to help elect a legislative majority in support of [his] platform. I intend to recruit and campaign and raise money for these candidates,” Van Ostern said at the time.

He soon backed away from that pledge, but as Landrigan reports, his allies and former aides stepped up and money flowed to Democratic legislative candidates, anyway. This is hardly a surprise given Van Ostern’s background as a political operative.

Notably absent are New Hampshire’s U.S. Senate Democrats, neither of whom have endorsed Van Ostern for Secretary of State despite supporting his previous candidacies.

“This is a matter for the Legislature to decide,” Sen. Maggie Hassan said in a statement, while a spokesperson for Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s office simply said she “is not getting involved in the race.”

“If the Secretary of State’s job devolves into a partisan political office with partisan practices like fundraising and campaigning, it will never go back,” McElveen said.

A Republican state house insider had a similar message for NHJournal: “How many times have the Democrats had control of the legislature? Something like less than 10% of the last 100 years. A vote for Van Ostern now is a vote for a hardcore conservative in 2020 when the GOP takes over the legislature.”

And another GOP activist put it even more bluntly: “They have no idea what they’re going to unleash. What—do they think we’re going to watch them elect someone like Van Ostern, and then when we take back the House, we’ll bring Billy [Gardner] out of retirement?”

A GOP majority in 2020 is hardly a certainty. What is all but certain, however, is that there will be a Republican legislative majority in the New Hampshire General Court again. And if history is any guide, in the near future.

Democrats may want to keep that in mind as they cast their votes on Tuesday.

During the early days of the New Hampshire First District Democratic primary, none of the (at least) nine congressional candidates would commit to supporting former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s return to power if, as expected, their party took control of the chamber.

Eventually, just one of the candidates, state rep. Mark MacKenzie, would publicly endorse Pelosi for speaker before the primary vote.

He came in eighth. 

The eventual nominee, Democrat Chris Pappas, then spent the entire general election dodging the issue in his campaign against Republican Eddie Edwards.  Pappas won handily on November 6th, but weeks later still refused to reveal his intentions regarding the leader of his caucus.

Until today.

This morning, Pappas finally announced what many NH pundits suspected was true throughout his campaign: #HesWithHer. He will join his fellow New Hampshire Rep. Annie Kuster and vote for a return to the Pelosi era.

“After careful consideration and discussion with many constituents and future colleagues in Congress, I have decided to support Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House,” Pappas said in a statement released today.   “I believe she is best equipped to lead the House at this point in our history.

“My conversations with her convinced me she will lead with fairness and empower the incoming class to play a significant role in the work ahead. We must get down to doing the people’s business quickly, and we should start by reforming the way Washington works, lowering the cost of health care and creating an economy that allows everyone to succeed.”

“I will work with anyone, anywhere to do what’s right for the New Hampshire district I represent, and I will stand up to anyone—from President Trump to leaders in Congress—when they’re wrong.”

Despite the fact that the movement to stop a Pelosi speakership has been led by his fellow centrists in the party, a low-key moderate like Chris Pappas was always an unlikely rebel. In the primary, he ran against a field of strong women candidates for the chance to replace a Congresswoman, Carol Shea-Porter, in a state that currently has an entirely female federal delegation.

A vote against the first-ever woman Speaker–or any powerful woman, for that matter–was never in the cards.

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.