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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.”

If pundits are looking for more evidence that partisanship is the most important motivator in American politics, New Hampshire just added another data point:

In November, the Granite State economy hit a record for the number of employed residents and a 30-year low unemployment rate…and voters threw out the Republican House and Senate and gave the incumbent GOP governor just 53 percent of the popular vote.

On Wednesday, the new jobs report revealed the highest number of working state residents ever– 763,040– and unemployment down to 2.5 percent, the lowest since August, 1988.  “Thanks to the strategic initiatives that New Hampshire has made, and our pro-growth, pro-jobs focus, more Granite Staters are working than ever before in the state’s history,” Gov. Chris Sununu said in a statement. It’s the same argument he made during the 2018 campaign, and one that his challenger, Molly Kelly, famously had no answer to.

???? BREAKING: For the first time since 1988, New Hampshire’s unemployment rate hits a low 2.5%. Well below the national average, it’s clear that we continue to set the gold standard for the rest of the country. WE ARE OPEN FOR BUSINESS! pic.twitter.com/9CorvNGZJf

— Chris Sununu (@GovChrisSununu) December 18, 2018

“Today’s economic news continues the positive trends of the past few years relating to the labor force; demographics; migration; exports; unemployment, and capital investment,” said Taylor Caswell, commissioner of the Department of Business and Economic Affairs. “We can say with confidence that New Hampshire’s economy remains highly competitive and will continue to attract top talent and world class employers.”

All great news. No, not great: Spectacular.  And yet, the fourth-most popular governor in the country with a red-hot economy and an unimpressive opponent won an 8-point win.  If “The Economy, Stupid” rules were in effect, this wouldn’t happen.

The same with President Donald Trump. Setting aside the stock market’s end-of-year “polar bear plunge,” the Trump economy has been unbelievably strong–literally. Pundits predicted economic disaster from a Trump presidency and dismissed Trump’s talk of 3 percent (and higher) growth as unrealistic.  The growth rate in the last quarter? 3.5 percent. The quarter before that: 4.2 percent.  And the national jobs numbers are just as hot: 3.7 percent unemployment, record-high employment among minority workers and the highest annual increase in wages in nine years.

And where’s Trump’s approval rating? 43 percent approve, 52 percent disapprove.

This is the environment New Hampshire Republicans must navigate, one where partisan animus overwhelms actual pocketbook performance.  Social scientists continue to be astonished by this new American moment, when the best predictor of behavior isn’t race or sex or economic standing–but partisanship.  That’s not how America has worked in the past.  The Republicans who crossed over and voted for Bill Clinton in 1996, the Democrats who stuck with George W. Bush in 2004 over national-security issues–they’re gone.  They’ve been replaced by a growing number of voters who simply vote party without seriously considering candidates from across the aisle.

Which means that, for Gov. Sununu and the Republicans who hope to re-take the state legislature or offer a serious challenge to congressional Democrats, delivering results and recruiting strong candidates isn’t enough. They have to find a way to shift voter’s views of the GOP brand here in New Hampshire.

And that’s another reason why the NHGOP’s choice of a new chairman is so important.  Creating a Granite State-friendly GOP brand is vital. Unfortunately, in a Trump-dominated political environment, it may next to impossible.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who just survived a massive blue wave that handed control of the legislature to the Democrats, has announced he opposes a proposal to have the state party openly support President Trump in the 2020 primary.

A vocal group of Republicans, led by Trump supporters state Rep. Fred Doucette and Windham town selectman Bruce Breton, are promoting a rule change allowing state party officials to promote incumbent Republican presidents in the Granite State’s first-in-the-nation (FITN) primary.

“Whether it’s President Trump or President XYZ, it’s the same,” Doucette told NHJournal. “Republicans work too hard to win the White House to sit back whenever an incumbent Republican is being challenged.”

Gov. Sununu does not agree.

“Whether it’s a primary for the New Hampshire House or the White House, the New Hampshire State Republican Committee must remain neutral in primaries,” Gov. Sununu said in a statement released to NHJournal. “After hard-fought primaries, the State Party is the vehicle to unite Republicans, and that is hard to accomplish if they try and tilt the scales for any candidate.”

Gov. Sununu did not mention the other commonly-made argument against ending the NHGOP’s neutrality policy: The risk it might pose to New Hampshire’s precarious position at the front of the line in electoral politics.

Follow NHJournal on Twitter.

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.

It’s official: Republican Bruce Breton, a Windham, NH selectman and enthusiastic member of the Trump 2016 campaign team, will proposa a change in the New Hampshire GOP party bylaws allowing party officials to support President Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

“This is a fatal flaw in our bylaws that keeps party officials from supporting our party’s president. It’s ridiculous,” Bretton told NHJournal.

“History shows that when Republicans don’t back the incumbent, we lose the seat. We saw it in 1992. We work so hard as a party to secure the presidency–then we’re not going to support our president?”

NH state Rep. Fred Doucette, a member of the incoming House GOP leadership and New Hampshire co-chair of Trump for President, agrees.  “It’s just common sense. If our party doesn’t unite, if we don’t all pull together, we lose.”

At the Rockingham GOP County Caucus on December 6 (left to right): Steve Stepanek, Bruce Breton. Gov. Chris Sununu, Rep. Fred Doucette, Rep. Al Baldasaro.

“I was at the bottom of the escalator in New York when he came down and announced his presidency, and I took a lot of abuse during the campaign. But he won, and he’s doing exactly what we elected him to do. President Trump deserves our support.”

Both Breton and Doucette told NHJournal they were still working on the best way to bring the rule change about, possibly during the GOP state convention in the spring. “It probably can’t happen [at the NHGOP convention] in January, but we could have a vote on a change in bylaws in the spring. Or there might be some other way to accomplish the same thing. We’re not sure. We’re just having a discussion,” Doucette said.

Breton says he brought up the idea at the Rockingham County Republican Committee Caucus earlier this month and “there was tons of support. I was really surprised. The ‘Never Trumpers’ don’t like it, but the grassroots love it,” Breton said.

Breton is right about the divide in the party. Prominent conservative Trump opponent Bill Kristol tells NHJournal:

“Trump is wrong to threaten the integrity of New Hampshire’s First in the Nation Republican primary. But he and his supporters wouldn’t head down this disreputable path if they weren’t worried. What are they worried about? They’re worried about free and fair competition on a level playing field. They’re worried about Granite Staters making up their own minds and deciding for themselves, as they’ve always done.”

The current frontrunner to become the new NHGOP chairman in January, Trump backer Steve Stepanek, has already declared that he would remain neutral in the 2020 primary if elected chair. “Where the party needs to be neutral, I will be neutral,” Stepanek says.

But will it even happen?  Local GOP strategist Tom Rath told Politico it’s “all talk,” and even strong Trump supporter Rep. Al Baldasaro tells NHJournal  “I don’t support a rule change.”

Other Republicans, like local GOP strategist Dave Carney, are more concerned about the impact of an “endorse the incumbent” policy on New Hampshire’s “First In The Nation” primary.  Carney, like many Granite State Republicans, believes the state’s #FITN status narrowly missed a major blow when longtime Secretary of State–and aggressively non-partisan Democrat–Bill Gardner was re-elected earlier this month by a one-vote margin in the legislature. They’re concerned that other states might use the perception of a rigged primary as leverage to bump the Granite State from the front of the line.

“People in New Hampshire don’t realize just how endangered our primary is,” Carney told NHJournal.

Doucette rejects the description of his proposal as “rigging.”

“Are all 50 state party’s neutral? Do they all have a policy against endorsing?  This is just an idea we’re discussing, and right away the RINOs are trying to rock the boat,” Doucette said. “We’re Republicans. We should all be supporting our president. He deserves it.”

Now that the campaign season has come to a close, it’s time for legislators to put aside political differences and get to work on the issues that matter most. They must recognize that here in New Hampshire, the legalization and commercialization of marijuana is not a political issue; it’s a public health and safety concern.

As lawmakers, it is the duty of our senators and representatives to ensure that our state remains one in which our children grow up strong and supported. Time and again, scientific studies have shown that using marijuana during younger years, when young brains are developing, can have long-term negative health effects.

Our brains are built from the bottom up and are still developing through our early to mid-twenties. Using harmful substances such as marijuana during these critical years has the potential to negatively impact brain development and impair thinking, memory and learning functions. In addition, the earlier adolescents experiment with marijuana, or other illicit substances, the more at risk they are for developing substance use disorders later in life.

New Hampshire already has one of the country’s highest rates of binge drinking and substance misuse in young people, as well as the nation’s lowest perception of harm for marijuana. Simply put, our children are not aware of the dangers of marijuana use.

The legalization and commercialization of marijuana would only heighten these concerns by opening our state to the Big Marijuana industry, which would aggressively market its products to our young people, much like the tobacco and alcohol industries before them. We must show Big Marijuana that the health of our children and our state is not for sale.

We don’t have to look far to see the negative impacts of commercialization.  In other states that have legalized, sales of traditional marijuana have declined in favor of highly potent products, such as sodas, edibles, waxes and dabs. In these products, the amount of THC, the addictive component of marijuana, has increased significantly, reaching as high as 98 percent.

Furthermore, other states have reported that tax revenues from marijuana sales have failed to meet projections, and legalization has done little to close the illegal black market. Governor Hickenlooper from Colorado has gone on record saying there is still a black market for marijuana of $50 million to $75 million annually.  Law enforcement in Oregon recently intercepted $48 million worth of black-market marijuana headed to other states.

For these reasons and many others, legalization is not a good investment for our state, socially or economically. A recent report by the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University concluded that, for every dollar earned in tax revenue from marijuana sales, Coloradans spend approximately $4.50 to mitigate the effects of legalization. These increased costs include accidental poisonings, traffic fatalities, court costs for impaired drivers, and employer-related charges, among many others.

In New Hampshire, substance misuse already costs our economy more than $2.6 billion a year in health care costs, lost worker productivity and other charges. We already have some of the nation’s highest rates of youth substance use, and we struggle to fund effective prevention programs. Legalizing and commercializing marijuana will only increase costs and further expose our youth to another addictive substance. That’s a risk we Granite Staters can’t afford.

They are the headlines every potential presidential candidate wants to see a month after the midterms:

• “Liz Warren Is Catching Fire” – Politico
• “Elizabeth Warren Has Arrived And So Have We” – Daily Kos
• “Elizabeth Warren’s Moment” – NBC News

“The storyline…is that the heart of the Democratic Party really wants Warren,” wrote Chris Cillizza of CNN.com, while Rep. Keith Ellison of the DNC  said on Face the Nation: “I think that right now people want an authentic candidate. Elizabeth Warren comes off as a very authentic person. So that is what people are gravitating towards.”

That’s quite a December for any candidate. Unfortunately for Liz Warren, that was December….2014.

Four years ago this week, MoveOn.Org was touting the Massachusetts liberal as the progressive’s rising star on their  “Run Warren Run news” website. (“We’re excited for week 2 of the Run Warren Run campaign…”) A few weeks later they would pour $250,000 into their “Draft Warren” efforts, backed by veteran Democratic campaigners like New Hampshire’s Kurt Ehrenberg and Blair Lawton of Iowa.

The effort lasted into the summer of 2015, with excited Democratic activists gathering more than 365,000 signatures trying to rally a reluctant candidate to run for president.

Iowa MoveOn member Saba Hafeez (University of Iowa campus organizer) and New Hampshire Democracy for America member August Tucker (an 18-year-old HS senior from Portsmouth, NH) delivered the petition to Sen. Warren in June, 2015

Four years later, the roles are reversed.

It’s hard to imagine a “Run Warren Run” grassroots wildfire today. Despite her highest of high profiles, polls among Democrats show her in the single digits in the 2020 race. Most Democrats in her home state of Massachusetts aren’t keen on her running.  And her decision to release a DNA test in her ongoing #Fauxcahontas fight with President Trump—just weeks before the midterms—was viewed bad timing and worse strategy.

And so now Liz Warren is trying to transform herself into the very obstacle she faced four years ago: The next Hillary Clinton.

In a story headlined “Elizabeth Warren Forges a 2020 Machine,” Politico reports that if Warren pulls the trigger on her POTUS campaign, “she’ll be rolling out arguably the most advanced and sweeping infrastructure in the Democratic field, a plug-and-play campaign that could give her a massive head start on nearly every contender in the burgeoning primary roster.”  That includes $12.5 million in the bank and more than 50 people on her campaign payroll.

She’s “built a shadow war room….that has encompassed work in all 50 states and close coordination with more than 150 campaigns,” Matt Viser reports in the Washington Post. It’s an impressive tale. But is it true?

Some Democrats tell InsideSources off the record that they think this is largely spin from the Massachusetts senator, an attempt to build up her standing as a member of the 2020 short list.  “They’re pushing this 150 campaign number so it looks like she has a machine,” one New Hampshire Democrat told NHJournal. “But she’s no Hillary Clinton—at least, not yet.”

But could she be?  Hillary Clinton had the benefit of the Clinton brand, built on eight years in the White House and a narrow loss to the politically-talented Barack Obama in 2008.  Sen. Warren, on the other hand, is a Democrat in one of the most Democratic states in the country. The last Republican to win a general election campaign for the U.S. Senate was Ed Brooke in 1972.  (Scott Brown won a special election in 2010 and promptly lost to Warren two years later.)

In fact, according to data analyst Harry Enten of CNN, Warren is an underperforming Massachusetts Democrat. Adjusting for the high number of Democratic voters in her state, “Warren’s performance was the sixth worst of all Senate Democrats” in 2018, Enten says.

When it comes to 2018, all the standard caveats go here: It’s early, none of the best-known Democrats considering a run have even announced, the Iowa caucuses are more than 400 days away, etc.  But the stark contrast between the mood of progressives today and four years ago is hard to miss.  Instead of headlines like “A Democratic Party That Realizes Its Soul Lies With Elizabeth Warren,” the headline in the Wall Street Journal reads “Too Soon For Democrats to Dump Liz Warren?”

Yes, the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal lean right. But the headline from the left leaning Washington Post reads  “As Her DNA Test Still Reverberates, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Political Operation Shows Fissures.” Even her longtime allies at the Boston Globe have editorialized “Warren missed her moment in 2016, and there’s reason to be skeptical of her prospective candidacy in 2020.”

“She has become a divisive figure,” they added.

As Hillary Clinton demonstrated, you don’t have to have grassroots excitement or progressive bona fides to win the Democratic nomination. Bernie Sanders had both and she still beat him (with a little unauthorized help from the DNC).  But if Hillary couldn’t generate excitement, she could generate something else:

Fear. Few people wanted to cross Hillary Clinton, and fewer still wanted to fight against the first woman POTUS nominee of a major party among Democrats so focused on identity politics.

Liz Warren, unfortunately, has none of those advantages. There’s no cost to crossing her, there are at least three other women on the potential-candidates list, and the glass ceiling (for the nomination, anyway) has already been broken.

Four years ago, the chant was “Run Warren Run!”

Today, it’s closer to “Why, Liz? Why?”

Forget biomass subsidies and paid family medical leave. Here at New Hampshire Journal, we’ve dragged Granite State politicos into the most hotly-contested throwdown debate of the day.

No, not Donald Trump. Die Hard.

Christmas movie or not?

If you live your life away from social media, you may not be aware of the ongoing national argument over whether Bruce Willis’ action-hero hit, Die Hard, is in fact a celebration of the Christmas season.  Proponents insist that Die Hard isn’t just a Christmas classic, but it’s the best Christmas movie EVAH!  Opponents just roll their eyes.

According to a December poll by Morning Consult, most Americans remain unconvinced that the tale of NYC Detective John McClane foiling a Christmas Eve robbery at Nakatomi Plaza is, in fact, heartwarming Christmas fare. Only 25 percent of Americans agree, while 62 percent say no.

One of the naysayers? Bruce Willis himself who, at an event marking the 30^th anniversary of the movie’s release (in July, by the way), told the crowd “Die Hard isn’t a Christmas movie! It’s a g**damn Bruce Willis movie!”

That hasn’t been enough to dissuade the most die-hard (sorry, had to do it) of fans. One trolling website used movie website data and other information to create what they claim is a map of the Christmas movie each state is most obsessed with. Die Hard, they claim, is number one in Virginia, Missouri and Washington state.  But they also claim that the top Christmas flick in Florida and California is Batman Returns. (That’s the one with Michael Keaton and Danny De Vito. Yikes.).

New Hampshire’s top flick? A Christmas Carol.

Meanwhile, the controversy is all over the media, with articles in the Washington Post and profiles on NBC News. The Portsmouth Herald recently ran a column, “Die Hard Is A Christmas Movie,” arguing that the true Christmas classic Home Alone “is essentially Die Hard for kids.”

So as the national debate rages, where do New Hampshire politicians stand? Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?

“Absolutely!” Gov. Chris Sununu told NHJournal.  “Everything about it says ‘Christmas.’”

Sununu, an admitted Die Hard fanboy, made a strong case. “What’s the theme song? The Christmas classic, ‘Let It Snow.’  When does the sequel [Die Hard II] take place? Christmas. And what does John McClane use to strap the gun to his back? Christmas packing tape. Case closed: It’s a Christmas movie!”

And while Sununu may struggle to get bipartisan support on energy policy or business taxes, on this issue he’s got plenty of allies across the aisle.

“Yes, of course Die Hard is a Christmas movie.  But I hear Russian bots are spreading lies that it isn’t,” NH Democratic Party chairman Ray Buckley told us via email.

“It’s one of the top 10 movies of all time, and it’s a Christmas movie,” says new State Senate majority leader Dan Feltes. “It’s a story of redemption and family and action and adventure all wrapped into a classic American story.”

The Granite State spirit of bipartisanship in this debate reflects national polling: 26 percent of Democrats and Republicans agree with Sununu, Buckley and Feltes.

Oh, and House GOP leader Rep. Dick Hinch: “Oh, definitely a Christmas movie,” he told us.  “The entire background of the movie is Christmas.”

So who then is New Hampshire’s voice for the silent majority? The 62 percent who think this is nonsense?

“Die Hard a Christmas movie? My answer is no,” says newly-elected Speaker of the House Rep. Steve Shurtleff.  “To me, a Christmas movie will always be films like It’s A Wonderful Life,” Miracle on 34th Street and A Christmas Story.

(Granite State 2^nd Amendment advocates, take note: The new speaker is down with the “Official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time.” An opening for cooperation and compromise?)

NH DNC National Committeewoman Kathy Sullivan is having none of it, either. “No. My idea of a great Christmas movie is Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, with music by the great Jules Styne. ‘Razzleberry dressing!’”

“Die Hard isn’t on my list,” says state Sen. Lou D’Allesandro, who, like Speaker Shurtleff, is a Miracle on 34^th Street fan. “When the court rules that, ‘if the Post Office says Edmund Gwenn is Santa that’s good enough for us,’ I love that part. But I’m a Democrat. I like it when the government solves problems,” he said with a laugh.

The Die Hard debate could even become an issue in the upcoming race for NHGOP vice chair.  Pam Tucker is a solid no: “Of course not! It’s an action-adventure movie. There’s shooting. There’s killing. There’s swearing! Where are the family values?”

Her opponent, Kate Day, tells NHJournal: “Christmas, Fourth of July, you name it. For me,  Die Hard is an anytime movie. Yippee Ki Yay!”

Interestingly, the political-consultant class seems to embrace the pro-Christmas-movie case whole-heartedly. Joel Payne, a DC Democrat and former advisor to Hillary Clinton’s campaign tells NHJournal “Die Hard is absolutely a Christmas movie. In fact, I would argue that Die Hard is the best Christmas movie. It’s built around an office Christmas party and (villain) Hans Gruber is the human embodiment of The Grinch.”

Locally-based GOP strategist Dave Carney echoes his sentiment. “It’s one of the top five, for sure. Only a Grinch lover would deny such a cultural fact.”

And yet the vast majority of Americans—and almost certainly Granite Staters—disagree. Is this another case of out-of-touch arrogant elites undermining our basic American values?

Or is Die Hard just a really, really good movie?

NOTE: For the definitive, inarguable and absolutely correct answer to the question “Is Die Hard a Christmas Movie?” click here.

The new Morning Consult poll of President Trump’s state-by-state approval ratings for November show that, while the president remains unpopular in New Hampshire, his numbers here have edged up slightly.  In fact, New Hampshire–which long had a more negative few of the president than the nation as a whole–is now close to the national polling average on the Trump presidency.

Trump’s November numbers in New Hampshire are 42 percent approval/55 percent disapproval among registered voters a net – 13.  In September those numbers were 40-57 percent, a net -17 percent. In September of 2017, Trump was underwater by 19 points--quite a turnaround for a candidate who lost New Hampshire to Hillary Clinton by just 0.4 percent of the vote a year earlier.

By comparison to New Hampshire’s 42/55, Morning Consult put Trump’s national average at 43 approve/52 disapprove, a 9-point deficit. So while Trump is still less popular in New Hampshire (hardly a surprise in deep-blue, anti-Trump New England), the gap between the Granite State and the rest of the nation has narrowed.

Trump’s numbers across most of New England are abysmal, ranging from -16 in Rhode Island to -25 in Vermont. The notable exception in Maine, where Trump’s under water by just 9 points, matching the national average.

So in a state where the incumbent Republican president is unpopular and Democrats just won a crushing victory, how should the NHGOP respond?

Longtime Republican strategist Mike Dennehy tells NHJournal that how Trump governs in the new era will be important:

“People will be paying very close attention to how Trump interacts with the new Democrat Senate Majority Leader and the Democrat Speaker,” Dennehy said.  “And in similar fashion, people will be looking to see how Governor Sununu gets along with the new Democrat majorities in the State House.  People are looking for action, but the current political environment doesn’t appear to allow for it so it will take strong leadership at the top.”

Dave Carney, another veteran NHGOP consultant, says “President Trump is in a decent position today, but in this new political world 18 months is like five lifetimes. The world will change many time before the electoin rolls along.”

Carney warns that both Republicans and Democrats in the Granite State should avoid overreaching when it comes to Trump and 2020, for the sake of the First In The Nation primary.

“That means not trying to tilt the tables in the primary,” Carney told NHJournal.  “New Hampshire is unique in that anyone can run for president and get a fair hearing from our voters.  Any perception that the game is rigged will help the other states undercut our position.”

“The people of New Hampshire should not underestimate how many other states want to take our FITN status away from us,” Carney said.

It took two ballots and came down to a single vote, but Bill Gardner was elected to an historic 22nd term as New Hampshire’s Secretary of State by the new, Democrat-dominated New Hampshire legislature on Wednesday.

Under the rules,  either Gardner or his opponent, fellow Democrat Colin Van Ostern needed 209 votes to win. The first ballot results were Van Ostern 207, Gardner 208 and one “scattered” vote (a ballot for a non-candidate).

The newly-elected (and clearly frustrated) Speaker of the House, Democrat Steve Shurtleff took the body into recess while supporters of the two candidates re-grouped. Then after a brief 3-minute speech for each candidate, the 416 House and Senate members present voted again, and Gardner got his 209.

“In my years in office, I have overseen 500 recounts where 11 ended in a tie and 32 ended up being decided by one vote,” Gardner said in his acceptance speech. “I never actually thought of myself ending up in one like that.”

Gov. Chris Sununu, who had predicted a Gardner win (though Sununu predicted it would be “overwhelming”) greeted the incumbent in the Secretary of State’s office with the cry “Forty more years!”

Van Ostern shook hands with Gardner and and said afterwards “I’m proud to get within a vote of Bill Gardner. No one’s beat him in 42 years.  He’s a legend in our politics and in our state.” The Democratic Party also tweeted out a message of support (“he has demonstrated great dedication and love for NH”)– which shouldn’t be news, given that Gardner is a Democrat.

Some of his fellow party members weren’t happy however, particularly progressives who haven’t forgiven Gardner for his participation on President Trump’s anti-voter-fraud  commission. They grumbled about the fact that at least 33 of their own joined with the GOP minority to support the moderate Gardner and defeat a loyal partisan like Van Osten.  One even tweeted that the New Hampshire Democratic Party should “find those that voted for Bill Gardner over Colin Van Ostern and punish them.” (It was a secret ballot, so…)

Gardner’s re-election is yet another data point indicating that New Hampshire Democrats aren’t in the same progressive mode as the national party.  In September’s primaries, for example, progressive candidates lost to more moderate competitors in the races for governor and the First Congressional District.  And neither of the new legislative leaders, Speaker Shurtleff and Senate President Donna Soucy, will be mistaken for Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The question now is what this means going forward, particularly for the 2020 presidential primary. There are at least 34 Democrats on the potential-candidate list (click here to see who they are), and the national party is already strategizing on how to avoid the mess the GOP experienced with a 16-way race in 2016.  Having Gardner at the helm means there will be fewer questions about partisanship in the New Hampshire primary (Van Ostern is a longtime campaign worker and more likely to raise questions about picking favorites, ala Clinton vs. Bernie in 2016).

And with the NHGOP re-considering its policy of remaining neutral in POTUS primaries involving an incumbent Republican (particularly when they’re named “Trump”), Gardner’s level-playing field approach will add subtle pressure on the party not to pick sides.

It’s widely believed that the 70-year-old Gardner won’t seek another term after this one, a fact that one of his supporters, Rep. Ned Gordon, reiterated in urging his colleagues to re-elect him. “I would like to see Bill finish his career gracefully,” Gordon said.