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Patients and visitors arriving at Concord Hospital masked up and ready to go were caught off-guard when staff told them their cloth masks were no longer adequate and they would have to wear hospital-provided blue paper procedure masks instead.

The policy change, which went into effect earlier this month, brings Concord Hospital in line with other New Hampshire hospitals where cloth masks are being banned, in favor of disposable, medical-grade masks.

Jenn Dearborn with Concord Hospital’s public affairs department said the change reflects the fact that more personal protective equipment, like masks and gowns, are now available for use which makes it easier for hospitals to offer the masks. It’s also an acknowledgment that disposable masks offer better protection against COVID-19 than cloth masks.

“PPE supplies of masks are now at a level where we can provide all patients wearing a cloth mask a procedure mask. Procedure masks are more effective at protecting against COVID-19 when compared to cloth masks,” Dearborn said. “We are making this change because we can now safely supply patients with a procedure mask and still have an adequate supply for the hospital and practices.”

Cloth masks are currently the norm in most settings, most notably public schools where a debate over their efficacy is currently raging. On Friday, administrators at Deerfield Community School banished unmasked children to the gymnasium after the school board suddenly imposed a mask mandate with little notice. On Monday, they began turning unmasked children away.

Concord Hospital isn’t the only hospital requiring procedure masks. Lauren Collin-Cline, director of communications at Catholic Medical Center, said the Manchester hospital now requires people to wear either a paper procedure mask, or a KN-95, or N-95-type mask.

“The reason for this is consistency in filtration,” she said. “Cloth masks vary widely in materials, layers, and fit around the nose and we don’t know what level of protection they offer. In the healthcare setting, we need to be confident in the level of protection people have given the current level of transmission in the community.”

Collins-Cline said the hospital did allow for cloth masks in the summer when the virus levels were going down. But that changed as cases have gone up and the delta variant is rampant. 

“We have always had a mask requirement. Earlier in the summer, we did relax to allow cloth masks but went back to procedural and higher when the positivity rate began to climb back up,” she said.

Adam Bagni, director of communications and community relations at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover, said the use of facility-provided masks has been required throughout the pandemic at their facility.

“This is to ensure the quality and cleanliness of every mask in our facilities. We carefully select and assess the masks that we provide to staff, patients, and visitors, for traits like performance, layering, and breathability. We issue a new mask each day, or visit, to ensure they are both sanitary and effective,” he said.

Martha Wassell, director of infection prevention at Wentworth-Douglass, said that in order for a cloth mask to be effective in curbing the spread of COVID-19, it must be double-layered, comfortable, fit snugly, and easy to breathe through.

While cloth masks are fine for general settings, like the grocery store, medical masks should be used in hospitals and health clinics, Wassell said.

“Medical-grade masks are typically prioritized for healthcare settings,” she said.

The debate over masks and mandates began almost as soon as the COVID-19 pandemic started, in part because public health officials told the general public — falsely, it turned out — that masks were unnecessary.

“There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said during a 60 Minutes interview on March 8, 2020. “When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.”

Fauci now acknowledges he wasn’t telling the truth, out of concern there wouldn’t be enough masks for health care workers.

New Hampshire Democrats greeted news of President Trump’s planned Saturday visit to Portsmouth with a demand: Mandate masks now. Everyone attending Trump’s rally must be required by Gov. Chris Sununu to wear a face mask.

Team Trump’s response: Where were these demands when these same Democrats were attending Black Lives Matter rallies across the state?

It didn’t take the two major Democratic candidates for governor long to throw down on the mask issue, or to link it back to their real target, Gov. Sununu.

“I’m calling on Gov. Chris Sununu to issue an order requiring social distancing and masks at the Portsmouth Trump rally,” state Sen. Dan Feltes tweeted Monday morning. “After Trump’s Tulsa rally, there was a sharp uptick in COVID cases. The public health of Granite Staters must take priority over politics.”

“Where is Gov. Chris Sununu?” Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky demanded via Twitter, adding:

“If Trump & Sununu refuse to put public health first, we must address out of state attendee risk, require masks, and ensure social distancing.”

NHJournal asked Volinsky what he meant by “addressing out of state attendee risk:” ID checks? Mandatory testing? Turning away out-of-state vehicles? He declined to respond.

Sununu released a statement Monday announcing he would be treating Trump’s event the same way he’s treated other political gatherings since the COVID-19 crisis began.

“As Governor, I will always welcome the President of the United States to New Hampshire. I am pleased to see the campaign will be handing out face masks and hand sanitizer to all attendees, as has been true at all public gatherings in NH where social distancing is hard to maintain. It is imperative that folks attending the rally wear masks,” Sununu said.

The statement from the governor’s office noted that “from the outset of this pandemic, the State has not stopped or prevented individuals from peacefully assembling, including marches led by Black Lives Matter and protests from Reopen NH.

“The Governor’s schedule is still being finalized. In the past, the Governor has greeted the President upon arrival at the airport. If the Governor greets the President at the airport, he will be wearing a mask,” according to the statement.

The Trump campaign responded to the Democrats’ complaints more aggressively, calling out what they perceive as hypocrisy from people demanding masks at Trump rallies just weeks after attending Black Lives Matter rallies with no mask mandate.

“When marauders destroy businesses and tear down statues, they don’t need masks. There is no concern about the spread of COVID-19,” Trump campaign strategist Corey Lewandowski told NHJournal. “But when Americans want to see the leader of the free world, a mask is a must? Hypocrites.

“One place the left doesn’t demand a mask is Joe Biden’s basement — where he remains hiding alone,” Lewandowski said.

Asked about the charge of hypocrisy, Feltes spokesperson Emma Sand told NHJournal:

“This will be by far the largest event and gathering since COVID-19 hit New Hampshire, and whether Gov. Sununu actually does a public health order, like he did for the upcoming NASCAR race, is the issue. At a minimum, he should issue a public health order for this event to protect lives and prevent an uptick in COVID-19 cases, not be cowed by Trump to fail to do his job”

Volinsky declined to comment.

Meanwhile, the debate rages over whether protests and political rallies have had a significant impact on COVID-19’s trajectory in recent weeks.

Despite the assumptions by Feltes and others, new positive tests in Oklahoma rose about 350 percent from June 1 until Trump’s rally on June 20, then by just 75 percent between rally day and July 4. In Tulsa County, officials said last week it was too early to make a determination about the impact of the Trump rally, and that the increased infections thus far had been traced to smaller gatherings at bars, gyms, and restaurants.

Meanwhile, supporters of protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer have been pushing back for weeks against claims their gatherings created a risk of significant spread. But in recent days, the mayors of Los Angeles and Miami have both acknowledged these rallies likely played some role in the recent increase in cases.

And in New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office revealed they instructed contact tracers tracking positive COVID tests not to ask if the infected person had attended a BLM protest.

“We’re doing everything we can to keep New Yorkers safe while respecting individual privacy,” said de Blasio spokeswoman Avery Cohen.

Team Trump tells NHJournal that Granite Staters are “ecstatic” to welcome President Trump back to New Hampshire.

“While encouraging safety measures for attendees, Saturday will be a celebration of President Trump’s ‘Promises Made, Promises Kept’ agenda, reminding voters that he is the only leader who can bring about the great American comeback,” said RNC spokesperson Nina McLaughlin. “The contrast between President Trump fighting for Granite Staters and Joe Biden hiding from them in his basement bunker couldn’t be clearer.”

It took less than 24 hours for the two Democrats vying to take on Gov. Chris Sununu to agree to Black Lives Matter’s demands on police reform and criminal justice. That list includes prisoner releases, expunging criminal records and closing the demographic gap on race and incarceration.

A day after Black Lives Matter Nashua, and its sister organization in Manchester released, their “set of 7 demands aimed at Governor Sununu, state Sen. Dan Feltes and Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky,” the two Democrats on the list had already tweeted out their support.

“Whether subtle or overt, caught on tape or not, every day our Black brothers and sisters face words, actions, & policies that rob them of the American dream. These are important steps I support that will make a real difference right now. Thank you for your activism and advocacy,” Feltes tweeted.

He followed up the next day with a pledge to “establish a new racial equity office to begin addressing injustice and ensuring representation in our state government. There are many steps we must take to address systemic racism, and this is just a start.”

Volinsky, still dealing with the fallout of his treatment of two African-American nominees to state boards that BLM members have described as “racist,” was even more aggressive. After quickly tweeting out his endorsement of the list, Volinsky followed up with a lengthy statement embracing the demands and expanding on them.

(Credit: Tony Pica)

“Despite our reputation as a state with little diversity, we are blind if we don’t understand that New Hampshire has many of the same problems and afflictions that plague other states with larger Black and Brown populations: police violence, discrimination in the workplace, over-incarceration, disproportionate health outcomes, including those resulting from the impact of COVID-19, housing discrimination, underfunded public schools, and a societal burden from hundreds of years of systemic racism that invariably alters the day-to-day life of Black and Brown Granite Staters,” Volinsky wrote.

Volinsky pointed out that “as an Executive Councilor, I have repeatedly led the effort to offer pardon hearings to applicants,” part of his support for both releasing all non-violent cannabis offenders (including large-scale dealers) and expounding their records.

“I often have been rebuked in this effort by the governor, by other Councilors and by interest groups, but it was the right thing to do and I shall continue to seek relief for incarcerated persons.”

Releasing prisoners early and letting drug dealers re-enter society with no record of their crimes may be politically popular among Democratic primary voters, but thus far Republican Chris Sununu hasn’t jumped on the bandwagon. As of Monday night, he had not responded to BLM’s demands, a fact the organization has noted.

Sununu was a no-show at Saturday’s BLM “Day of Action” event in Concord, inspiring chants of “Where’s Chris?” from the crowd. On Twitter Monday, BLM Nashua wrote:

Sununu’s office declined requests for comment from NHJournal. However, on June 9 Sununu told NHJournal he rejected the charge New Hampshire police suffer from “systemic racism.”

“We talk about implicit bias. We talk about the idea of making sure that all the law enforcement communities across the state understand those issues in terms of how to deal with them,” Sununu acknowledged, but added, “Do we have systematic racism throughout our law enforcement community here in New Hampshire? No.”

Republican state Rep. Tim Lang (R-Sanbornton), a 10-year law enforcement veteran, defended Sununu’s record on police reform and racial justice issues.

“Back in 2017, long before the current movement, he formed the Civil Rights Unit in the state Department of Justice,” Lang told NHJournal. “He formed the Commission on Law Enforcement weeks ago, with a tight timeline to actually take action. They talk about a Civilian Oversight Board, well, we’ve got civilians on the Police Standards and Training Council already.”

As for the BLM’s demands: “Hostage takers make demands. Reasonable people talk,” Lang says. “Our Governor is way ahead of those guys, and they are just playing catch-up.”

When state Sen. Jeanne Dietsch claimed some parents choose to homeschool because they’re child abusers with drug problems, many New Hampshire political observers dismissed it as just another misstep from an erratic politician with a history of odd statements and political stances.

But when New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley took to Twitter to defend Dietsch by blasting out a series of links to stories and opinion pieces doubling down on the “homeschoolers have an abuse problem” meme, politicos took notice. New Hampshire Democrats, never fans of homeschooling, appear to be declaring political war.

“Inaccurate and disparaging remarks by Senator Dietsch and Democrat Chairman Buckley about homeschooling are tone-deaf and dystopian,” Michael Donnelly, senior counsel of the Home School Legal Defense Association, told NHJournal. “They reflect a loud distrust of their fellow citizens. Allegations that homeschooling parents are more ‘abusive’ are wholly unsupportable.”

New Hampshire Democrats have long demonstrated discomfort with home school — not to mention private schools, religious schools and even public charter schools. Last November, a Granite State Democrat who sat on the House Education Committee said: “F*** private religious schools.”

And the Democratic-controlled Fiscal Committee took the unprecedented step earlier this year of rejecting federal education funds because they would benefit public charter school education.

But bringing in child abuse and drug addiction is a stretch, even for public-school-or-bust Democrats. Are they onto something?

Not according to the available data.

There is no evidence homeschool children are abused at a higher rate, hospitalized at a higher rate, or removed from their homes at a higher rate than their classroom counterparts.

In fact, one of the tweets Buckley fired off in defense of Dietsch is a 2017 story headlined “The Sinister Side of Homeschooling” in which the expert quoted throughout says she “does not believe homeschooling parents are more abusive than others.”

Meanwhile, many studies show the opposite: Homeschool children are less likely to be harmed by adults than kids in public school classrooms. “Legally homeschooled students are 40 percent less likely to die by child abuse or neglect than the average student nationally,” one 2017 study found.

According to a National Household Education Survey, the number one reason parents choose homeschooling is to protect their children from drugs and violence.

And based on the largest and most widely cited study, there’s about a 5 to 7 percent chance the source of danger at public schools would be the teachers. Teachers are more likely to engage in sexual contact with children than Catholic priests.

“I’m not going to say every homeschool parent is perfect, of course not,” Michelle Levell, Director and co-founder of Granite State Home Educators, told NHJournal. “But there have been maybe half a dozen cases involving classroom teachers in just the past couple of years right here in New Hampshire. The Howie Leung case is still in the press, and that was allegedly covered up for years.”

“Until they eliminate this sort of abuse in their own system, they need to stop the finger-pointing at other people,” Levell said.

Not to mention bullying and other forms of violence and stress. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics : “In 2016, students ages 12-18 experienced 749,400 victimizations (theft and nonfatal violent victimization) at school.”

All of which makes New Hampshire homeschool parents even more angry over the bizarre suggestion that there’s a child abuse problem in their midst, particularly as more parents are considering it as an alternative to returning children to classroom settings amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Parents of K-12 kids are already desperately trying to decide what to do about their children this fall.

A plan for public school reopening is expected from Gov. Chris Sununu and Commissioner of Education Frank Edelblut in early July. But some parents are insisting that until there’s a vaccine to protect their children, their kids won’t be sitting in a traditional classroom.

In the latest University of New Hampshire Granite State Panel survey released Friday, 67 percent of respondents said they felt comfortable sending their children back to school. However, just 53 percent of Democrats feel the same.

Currently, just four percent or so of American students are homeschooled. But an April RealClear Opinion Research survey of 2,122 registered voters found 40 percent of families are more likely to homeschool or virtual school after the lockdown.

A USA Today poll in late May found 60 percent of parents say they would be likely to pursue at-home learning options instead of sending their children back this fall. A full 30 percent say they are “very likely” to keep their kids at home.

And just as these suburban parents (and potential swing voters) are making this calculation, progressives are hosting Harvard seminars on how homeschooling should be banned. Smearing parents who choose it are suspect. (The seminar was canceled after widespread backlash from parents and education experts.) The timing is unfortunate at best.

“Are politicians afraid that the coronavirus will permanently increase demand for non-public education?  Maybe,” says Donnelly. “It’s really hard to understand why policymakers would disparage homeschooling parents this way.”

New Hampshire Education Commissioner Edelblut tells NHJournal he agrees: “It is unfortunate that Sen. Dietsch continues to insult New Hampshire parents. Her ignorance of home education and contempt for parents seeking education alternatives for their children is preventing New Hampshire students from finding their paths to bright futures.”

Bernie Sanders’ aggressive climate policy could bankrupt New Hampshire’s middle class. That’s the finding of a new study on the costs of the Green New Deal (GND).

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, Power the Future, and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty analyzed implementation costs in 11 states, including New Hampshire, and found that it would cost the average household more than $75,000 in the first year and more than $40,000 each year thereafter. In New Hampshire, the first-year costs would exceed the median household income.

“The Green New Deal would effectively destroy America’s energy industry, and with it, our entire economy,” said Daniel Turner, executive director of Power the Future.

The new study builds on one released by CEI and Power the Future last July analyzing electricity, vehicle, housing upgrade and shipping costs in five states: Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Pennsylvania. The new study adds Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin to the analysis.

The Green New Deal was introduced by U.S Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) ostensibly to combat climate change. The proposal also includes additional progressive policy goals like guaranteeing a living wage and universal healthcare.

However, the sponsors did not include a price tag in their GND proposal and determining its true cost has been elusive. Various organizations from across the political spectrum have attempted to determine the total cost by breaking down its components.

For example, expanding renewable energy to provide 100 percent of the country’s power grid would cost upwards of $200 billion a year for 10 years, according to physicist Christopher Clark. Upgrading every house and industrial building for energy efficiency would run about $10,000 per structure for a total of nearly $1.4 trillion, according to several estimates.

The Green New Deal for Public Housing Act introduced by Cortez and Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) — which would put organic groceries and onsite childcare into every public housing community — would cost between $119 billion and $172 billion over a decade. That plan also calls for giving a free bicycle to every resident.

Electrifying the United States, though, is more complicated than halting investments and productions of fossil fuels and adding a few power lines. To eliminate carbon emissions, America would need to produce twice as much electricity as it does today, which would require the construction of additional — and expensive — infrastructure. For example, a study for the Brattle Group found that while New England has been adding about 280 megawatts of energy from renewable sources per year, to eliminate carbon from energy production by 2050, that number would need to increase by 2,400 percent every year.

The GND also poses a potential threat to New Hampshire’s dairy and agriculture industries.

An addendum to the report looked specifically at the cost of the Green New Deal to Wisconsin’s agricultural sector, which employs 11.8 percent of the state’s workers. Author Will Flanders, research director at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, noted that the GND’s “architects set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.”

Farmers would have to pay $2,000 per cow to offset the bovines’ carbon dioxide emissions, according to economist William Nordhaus. “This could lead to mass closures of small farms in an industry that is already struggling,” Flanders wrote.

In New Hampshire, the effects would be just as devastating says Shawn Jasper, the Granite State’s agriculture commissioner. “You’d put everybody out of business,” he told NHJournal. “There wouldn’t be a cow left in New Hampshire.”

The Granite State dairy industry employs 5,300 people and pays $55 million each year in taxes, Jasper notes. “Farmers are already doing a great job on carbon sequestration with strategies like no-till land management. Targeting dairy cows is just ridiculous.”

The CEI-led study found that the transition to the GND would cost households in its 11 target states $2.7 trillion. Although costs would decrease after the first year of implementation and then again after year five, households would still be on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars each year.

In New Hampshire, the year one cost is estimated at $74,723 and the year five costs would come to $39,821.

“It’s a shame this study didn’t come out before the New Hampshire primary, which was won by a candidate who promised to implement the Green New Deal if elected president,” said Andrew Cline, Executive Director of the Josiah Bartlett Center, a free-market think tank in the Granite State. “The median household income in our state is a few hundred dollars less than what this study estimates to be the Green New Deal’s per-household cost in New Hampshire in its first year. It would’ve been fun to see a voter ask about that.”

In Alaska, the year one costs are estimated at $84,544 and costs after year five would come to $51,740 annually. Other costs in the first year and annually after five years, per state state, are $74,287 and $40,450 (Colorado); $76,109 and $40,828 (Florida); $76,683 and $41,602 (Iowa); $74,470 and $40,602 (Michigan); $74,432 and $40,970 (New Mexico); $74,609 and $40,697 (North Carolina); $75,807 and $40,663 (Ohio); $75,307 and $40,983 (Pennsylvania); and $70,252 and $40,906 (Wisconsin).

“The Green New Deal is a politically motivated policy that will saddle households with exorbitant costs and wreck our economy,” said CEI President Kent Lassman. “Our analysis shows that, if implemented, the Green New Deal would cost… American households at least tens of thousands of dollars annually on a permanent basis. Perhaps that’s why exactly zero Senate Democrats, including the resolution’s 12 co-sponsors, voted for the Green New Deal when they had the chance.”

For a state like New Hampshire, where the fifth-highest electricity prices in the country are already driving away some businesses, the real costs of pursuing GND climate policies could be significant.

“New Hampshire’s portion of the bill comes to more than half of the state’s entire GDP, and that’s excluding the non-energy workplace regulations contained in the Green New Deal,” Cline said. “Clearly, New Hampshire can’t afford this preposterous scheme.”

New Hampshire may soon prove the truth of its state motto: “Live Free or Die!” Several state legislators have introduced an election bill that is best explained as a thumb in the eye to California and other states that would like to stifle New Hampshire’s voice in presidential elections.

The Constitution gives New Hampshire the ability to defend itself. Now several state legislators are proposing to do just that.

Their idea sounds admittedly odd at first. New Hampshire legislators propose to withhold the state’s popular vote totals at the end of a presidential election. Those numbers wouldn’t be released until after the meetings of the Electoral College, assuming they aren’t needed for a recount.

The hope is to frustrate an anti-Electoral College effort that has been working its way through state legislatures.

The National Popular Vote organization (NPV) knows that a constitutional amendment formally eliminating the Electoral College would be too hard: That formal process requires the support of 38 states. Thus, NPV instead seeks support for a simple contract among states: Any state that signs also agrees to give its electors to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of the outcome within its own borders. The compact goes into effect when states holding 270 electors—enough to win an election—have agreed to participate.

So far, 15 states plus Washington, D.C. have signed. Those entities have 196 electoral votes among them. Seventy-four more are needed.

In other words, NPV could effectively eliminate the Electoral College with the support of only a minority of states.

Don’t expect anyone to care about New Hampshire’s primary results once the Electoral College is gone. In a contest for the most individual votes, what candidate will care about little New Hampshire and its 1.3 million people? That’s less than one half of one percent of the United States population.

Fortunately, our Founders knew that small states might need to defend themselves from their larger neighbors. They left states in charge of themselves at election time. And that’s where New Hampshire’s proposal comes in: It can confuse NPV’s ability to generate a national popular vote total. Without that tally, the NPV compact fails.

Remember, there is no official national tally because American presidential elections are conducted state-by-state. NPV’s compact instead assumes that it can rely on an “official statement” from any other state regarding the number of popular votes in that state. Such official statements are to be treated as “conclusive.”

But what if non-NPV states created official statements that are purposefully confusing? The possibilities are endless, and New Hampshire’s proposal is simply the tip of the iceberg.

Perhaps New Hampshire will choose to withhold all popular vote totals, but what if another state were to release totals for winning candidates only? In 2016, Texas could have reported its 4.6 million votes for Donald Trump, even as it refused to report Hillary Clinton’s 3.8 million votes.

Federal reporting requirements can’t prevent Texas or New Hampshire from taking these actions, despite the protests of NPV. Federal law is vague, asking for only “the canvass or other ascertainment” supporting the appointment of electors.

If non-NPV states were to adopt such plans, they would skew the national total, to say the least. But there’s more.

What if another state were to tweak the congressional district system already used in Maine and Nebraska?  Each voter in the state could be given three votes: One could be cast for an elector expected to represent a congressional district. Two separate ballots could be cast in another election for at-large electors, expected to represent the state.

Voters would be fairly represented by electors of their own choosing, and popular vote totals could be released before the meetings of the Electoral College. Yet NPV would have no way to tabulate a coherent national popular vote tally when each voter gets three ballots to cast in two different elections for presidential elector.

Perhaps another state would prefer to keep it simple. It could give each of its voters two votes—or even three!  Most voters will cast all their ballots for the same candidate, but not everyone will. The final tally will be confused—and inflated in favor of that state’s preferred candidate.

Indeed, the real question is: How imaginative are state legislators? How many ideas can they generate for conducting a presidential election, even as they complicate NPV’s efforts to tabulate the national popular vote?

NPV has arrogantly assumed that a minority of states can overhaul the presidential election system, without so much as asking the rest of us what we think.

An attitude of “Live Free or Die” is the perfect antidote.

“And I can’t deny the fact that you like me. Right now, you like me!” — Sally Field, accepting the Best Actress Academy Award for ‘Places in the Heart’ in 1985.

Establishment Democrats fear him, cable news pundits dismiss him as unelectable, and Trump supporters celebrate his success. But how do rank-and-file Democrats feel about Bernie Sanders?

They like him. Right now, they like him.

A new WBUR poll of New Hampshire Democrats gives Sanders 29 percent of the vote and a double-digit lead over his closest competitor — a margin so large some see the poll as an outlier.  However, look past the topline and the numbers in this poll aren’t out of line with recent results.

For example, Sanders’ approval rating among New Hampshire Democrats is 74 percent — higher than any other candidate.

In Morning Consult’s latest poll of Democrats nationwide, his approval is 73 percent — and that’s actually down by 3 points.

And a new FiveThirtyEight analysis of multiple polls finds Sanders is the most popular Democrat in the field with a 73 percent favorable rating and a net +51 percent approval.

It’s true that Sanders favorability is only slightly higher than Biden (71 percent) or Elizabeth Warren (68 percent), and polling throughout 2019 found Democratic primary voters generally like all of the frontrunning candidates and were satisfied with their choices. So in a sense, Sanders’ numbers aren’t news.

Is sexism responsible for Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s recent slide in the polls? Will her gender-war dust-up with Sen. Bernie Sanders turn around her struggling campaign?

The early polling is unclear. But of all the states where Warren can complain of sexism, the very worst may be New Hampshire.

In 2016, the same night Hillary Clinton won the state’s four Electoral College votes, New Hampshire’s woman governor was elected to the U.S. Senate, giving the state an all-female congressional delegation. There are only two U.S. senators in purple states with an approval rating above 50 percent in the latest Morning Consult poll. Both are women — and both are in New Hampshire.

So when Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) says sexism facing women candidates like herself “is so bad,” it’s hard to reconcile with the record of New Hampshire primary voters.

Complaints about unfair treatment of women candidates is nothing new. In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri said explicitly that “misogyny and sexism were a problem on the campaign trail.” Across the aisle, supporters of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin pointed out egregiously sexist attacks coming from left-leaning outlets.

Also not new: Studies showing that women candidates succeed or fail at about the same rate as men. It’s true that women are less likely to run — a fact that is evidence itself of sexism, some say — but when they run, they’re just as likely to win as their male counterparts. In 2018, they were more likely.

These facts haven’t stopped the surge of statements, news stories and analysis suggesting that America in general — and Democratic primary voters in particular — are uncomfortable voting for women.

“We have a deeply misogynistic country,” 2020 Democrat Andrew Yang said at a recent Concord, N.H. campaign stop. “I would one hundred percent agree with anyone who thinks the deck is stacked against female candidates because, of course, it is.”

But is that what’s keeping Warren and Klobuchar out of the top of the early-state polls? Particularly an early state like New Hampshire, with three women and an openly-gay man representing them in Congress?

“Keep in mind that the majority of Democratic primary voters in every state, including New Hampshire, are women. They tend to make up 55 to 60 percent of the electorate,” Emerson College Director of Polling Spencer Kimball told InsideSources. In the new Emerson poll of Granite State Democrats released Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders and former mayor Pete Buttigieg are on top at 23 and 18 percent respectively, while Warren’s numbers continue to slide.

A year ago, Warren was at 25 percent in the Emerson poll, and last September she was at 21 percent. But since November she’s been stuck at 14 percent, even as her top competitors have been on the rise. Interestingly, it was Amy Klobuchar who got the biggest bump, from 2 percent in the September Emerson poll to 10 percent — and right on Warren’s heels — today.

Sexism at work?

The case that primary voters are reluctant to back women is also undermined by Warren’s own performance. Throughout 2018, Warren was a frontrunner in both New Hampshire and nationwide. At one point, nearly 30 percent of Democrats were backing her, more than any other candidate. Since then, her support as fallen by half, most of which is attributed, not to misogyny, but to her mishandling of the Medicare For All issue.

That may explain why Warren is both in fourth place overall in New Hampshire and in third place behind Sanders and Buttigieg among women voters.

Still, few people argue that sexism is non-existent.

Kimball says that women candidates do face a somewhat steeper campaign climb, and he says that based on the polling data, the problem is — their fellow women. “Women voters hold female candidates to a different standard,” Kimball said. “Senator Klobuchar is actually getting more support from men than from women.”

“I do think some biases do exist among some people,” New Hampshire Democratic National Committeewoman and former state party chair Kathy Sullivan told InsideSources. “Look at Warren: right after she announced, I had a reporter from a national paper call and ask me if ‘likeability’ would be a problem — a question I never ever hear about male candidates. And Amy Klobuchar — there was the story that she was tough on her staff that got a lot of coverage early on. A similar story was written about Bernie Sanders four years ago by a Vermont media outlet,  and no other media outlets seem to have run with it.”

Jennifer Horn, a former GOP state party chair who ran for Congress in New Hampshire, told InsideSources that sexism is real, though she says it’s not a significant force. Instead, she believes the way women candidates handle sexism is far more important.

“Yes, it was harder to run for office as a woman than a man. But you just have to face it and overcome it,” Horn said. “When we buy into it, or when we complain about it to save our campaigns, it just makes us look weak.

“And this is really a problem for Warren because she already struggles with the authenticity issue. That’s a much bigger problem for her campaign that what Bernie Sanders might have said at dinner.”

Presidential hopeful Andrew Yang understands that out-of-state college students have used New Hampshire’s lax voter residency laws to cast ballots in the Granite State. He just doesn’t understand why some people think that’s a bad thing.

“If you’re here in New Hampshire, you know this is the center of the political world, right? And so it’d be very natural for our college students here to say, ‘Hey, I’d like to have my voice heard,'” Yang told NHJournal. “And if you make it harder for them, then you’re sending the wrong message.”

Yang says he opposes New Hampshire’s recently passed voting regulations that require people to be legal residents — as opposed to merely temporarily domiciled here — if they want to vote in the state’s elections. “New Hampshire should be making it easier and not harder for [out-of-state] college students to vote.”

New Hampshire has the highest percentage of college students per capita in the country, and progressive campus groups have publicly bragged about their ability to mobilize these students — many legal residents of other states — to sway elections in the past. For example, the campus group NextGen America (founded by 2020 contender Tom Steyer) says they increased turnout in their targeted college precincts in 2016 by more than the margin of victory for Democrat Maggie Hassan over incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte.

Given that Trump lost New Hampshire that year by less than 3,000 votes, some New Hampshire residents don’t want the state’s Electoral College votes to be controlled by temporary residents of the Granite State. There are also complaints by long-term residents about the impact of these out-of-state student voters on local elections, too.

Yang rejects these criticisms. “I would argue that the local New Hampshire voters are helped, not hurt, by having more people participate in the process here. It doesn’t dilute their votes. It’s the opposite. If you have young people in the state excited about the candidates, then they’ll spread the word through social media and other means. These are all very positive things.”

Presidential candidate Andrew Yang shoots hoops with students at Concord (N.H.) High School on January 2, 2020.

Yang made his comments at a campaign stop in Concord, NH, on Thursday, after shooting hoops with Concord High students as part of a campaign tour across the Granite State. In addition to lower residency standards in New Hampshire, Yang touted his support for allowing 16-year-olds to vote.

“We have 16-year-olds paying taxes,” Yang said. “And it’s only fair that they should know where their taxes are going. And studies have shown that when you vote young, you’re more likely to become a lifelong voter, which we should be encouraging. Right now, high school students look at our politics and don’t feel that it’s relevant to them in part because they can’t participate.

“So if you had the voting age at 16, you would have every high school in the country actually engage with our democracy. And that’d be positive,” Yang said.

Yang isn’t the only Democrat who feels this way. “I myself have always been for lowering the voting age to 16…I think it’s really important to capture kids when they’re in high school,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last year.

Appealing to young voters has paid off for the once-unknown tech entrepreneur. Though he continues to poll in single digits, he’s received enough support to make the Democratic debate stage in December — something experienced politicians like Sens. Cory Booker and Michael Bennet were unable to do. And Yang still has a shot at qualifying for the January debate in Iowa.

Yang’s managed to pull ahead of these pols thanks in large part to his support from younger voters, particularly those 18-29-year-olds. According to a Morning Consult poll in December, Yang is in fourth place among these voters at 9 percent. And he’s getting a larger share of his support from voters under 45 than anyone else in the field.

So catering to college students and teenagers may be a smart, short-term strategy for Yang, but it presents challenges in the long run.

For example, his plan to let 16-year-olds pick a future president is wildly unpopular with voters overall, with multiple polls showing 75 percent — or more — of Americans oppose the idea. It’s also out of step with moves across country to restrict the choices people under 21 can legally make, such as smoking cigarettes or vaping. When asked about this dichotomy, Yang insisted that 16-year-olds are adult enough to vote.

“You could argue that 16-year-olds don’t understand enough to vote. But that argument rings false to me when I actually interact with them, many of whom are very savvy and understand what’s going on around them,” Yang said. “And the fact is we’re not springing pop quizzes on voters when they show up to vote.

“We need to trust our people. And that includes our young people,” Yang said.

After months of avoiding questions about his views on impeachment, Rep. Chris Pappas took to the friendly media environs of New Hampshire Public Radio to discuss his support for impeaching President Trump and removing him from office.

Unfortunately, a few significant questions somehow slipped through the cracks. We here at New Hampshire Journal have sent them over to Rep. Pappas’ office. When we get his answers, we’ll be happy to share them with the voters of the First Congressional District.

1: Rep. Pappas, you said these impeachment articles represent “a very strong, clear-cut case with respect to the issue of Ukraine.” A clear-cut case of what? Neither article of impeachment alleges President Trump broke the law. Do you believe future Democratic presidents should face the prospect of removal from office by a Republican Congress without even the assertion of having violated any federal law?

2: Rep. Pappas, you’re supporting articles of impeachment that have no bipartisan support. In fact, even some of your fellow House Democrats are voting against impeachment. Do you view an entirely partisan impeachment vote to be as legitimate as a bipartisan one, such as the 410-4 vote in 1973 to start an impeachment inquiry into President Richard Nixon?

3: When the House of Representatives voted articles of impeachment in 1998, 31 Democrats joined with Republicans to impeach President Bill Clinton, who admitted that he had committed perjury before a federal judge and federal grand jury. Rep. Pappas, do you believe the impeachment of President Clinton was legitimate? Would you have voted to impeach him?  If not, why?

4: Rep. Pappas, you said you objected to Senate Republicans coordinating the handling of the impeachment trial with the White House, calling it “colluding.” But then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) has acknowledged that he frequently met with the Clinton White House during the impeachment process. And the Clinton White House issued demands that there be no witnesses called during the impeachment, a demand upheld by the Democratic minority in the Senate.  Should Republican presidents be impeached differently from Democrats?

5: Rep. Pappas, you rejected the suggestion that your support for impeachment is a sign that you’re merely a water carrier for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and your party’s leadership. “I’m also willing to stand up to members of my own party when they’re wrong for New Hampshire,” you told NHPR.  Can you give an example?

And a bonus question, the same question New Hampshire Journal’s been asking the congressman since he first announced his support for an impeachment inquiry in July:

Rep. Pappas, what is your message to the majority of voters in your district, who voted to make Trump president and whose votes you’d be overruling by removing Trump from office?

We look forward to sharing Rep. Pappas’ answers to these reasonable and timely questions in this space.