Is New Hampshire Turning Liberal? Who’s Responsible?

By Jim on November 12th, 2008

The topic of why New Hampshire has gone Democratic is a fascinating one that goes on and on and on. The conventional wisdom has it that mass numbers of Massachusetts liberals have poured into the state and taken over. This view says that the good, decent Republican natives have been overwhelmed by the locust-like influx of disgusting big government socialists from Taxachusetts.

Well, unfortunately, that really isn’t the case. An article today in the Union Leader had some interesting information to back this up:

UNH Associate Political Science Professor Andrew Smith says the conventional wisdom that blames — or credits, depending on one’s point of view — Massachusetts transplants for the shift in New Hampshire’s political preferences is inaccurate.

While most transplants to New Hampshire are from Massachusetts, one of several reasons they come to New Hampshire is that they believe Massachusetts is too liberal, Smith said, citing a 2006 UNH study. He said others who migrate here “are from other parts of the Northeast, and if you think of the other New England states and New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, these are all Democratic states and have been for quite some time.”

Besides migration, he said, the shift has come as younger people have reached voting age and most identify themselves as Democrats. Plus, said Smith, “a lot of people have moved out or died, and those people were solidly Republican. To put it bluntly, old-time New Hampshire folks are dying.”

Yep, we’re seeing a combination of a generational shift along with immigration of retirees and others from deep blue states. These folks see New Hampshire as a “scenic” and “peaceful” place to retire to. They don’t really care about the libertarian type culture that already exists here.

Fortunately the influx of these socialist pests has been balanced out to a certain degree by conservatives from Massachusetts as well as Free Staters that have been moving here in force from all over the country. The largest group of voters in New Hampshire are not Democrats or Republicans. They’re independents and it is they who will continue to swing elections.

Republicans can win in New Hampshire (the party picked up 17 seats in the House in this year’s election and held the line in the state senate) but the candidates the party puts up need to be able to appeal to more than just the Republican base. Independents are critical if Republicans want to win.

But let’s be careful here. It is very, very unwise to judge New Hampshire solely through the Red Versus Blue prism. There are some Democrats here that are far more conservative on social and fiscal issues than some Republicans.

New Hampshire politics can be very confusing and treacherous for someone new to the state to understand. On the surface it seems to have become a blue state but there different shades of blue and – even if the Republicans take over again – there are different shades of red. There are Republicans…gasp!…who have touted an income tax in New Hampshire too at one point or another.

So we must be very careful before we say “New Hampshire is turning liberal” because so much depends on who is saying this and if they really understand that New Hampshire’s politics are not necessarily what they seem to be on the surface. And we must never take party affiliation at face value. Things are often much more obtuse than that.

Regardless of which party is currently in control of New Hampshire’s government, we the people will need to keep an eye on them and make sure that New Hampshire remains the freeist possible state. Give the full article a read on the Union Leader’s site and then read some of the comments below. It’s quite interesting to see what people have to say about this topic.

What’s your take? Do you think NH has become more liberal? More libertarian? More conservative?

Edit: I set up a thread at NES about this in case you’re interested in reading comments there.