Hillary probable to carry Rochester, Somersworth
Chalk up two more working-class cities for Hillary Clinton: Rochester and Somersworth.
Barack Obama may win tonight yet, but it does not look as overwhelming as the conventional wisdom thought.
Chalk up two more working-class cities for Hillary Clinton: Rochester and Somersworth.
Barack Obama may win tonight yet, but it does not look as overwhelming as the conventional wisdom thought.
Hillary Clinton's vote is holding up remarkably well so far.
She has carried the city of Dover. Also has a significant lead so far in Manchester.
She also is close in the city of Portsmouth.
It ain't over yet.
If Mitt Romney pulls this out at the last minute, it's going to happen in the Interstate 93 corridor, home of many Massachusetts transplants. Draw a line from Manchester, down I-93 to the Mass border, this should be Romney territory: Manchester, Bedford, Merrimack, Litchfield, Londonderry. And toward the border, keep an eye on Derry, Salem and Windham. If Romney is not winning these places convincingly, things probably aren't going well for the former Massachusetts governor.
Also of interest for Romney is the Lakes region (Belknap County), where he keeps his summer home.
McCain's areas of strength form an arc around the I-93 corridor: Keene and Cheshire County; the Hanover/Lebanon area; Merrimack County, especially around Concord; and the Seacoast area (from Epping eastward to the ocean). Expect wide margins for McCain here if he has indeed put parts of the old coalition (moderate GOPers and Republican-leaning indies) back together again.
Enjoy the evening! We'll try and update here as we can during the evening. And I'll be up on NH public radio tonight -- www.nhpr.org.
A quick hit on what to watch in New Hampshire tonight before I dash to Concord for New Hampshire Public Radio's live coverage.
On the Democratic side:
Early on, watch the cities of Manchester and Keene.
Manchester still has significant pockets of working-class voters, and is a good bellwether for the Hillary Clinton blue-collar vote. If Clinton carries Manchester by a wide margin, expect the results to be closer than expected. If Obama keeps close in Manchester, expect him to win comfortably statewide.
And if Obama carries Manchester, well, whoa Nelly! The rout is on.
Keene is located in the heart of Cheshire County, one of the most liberal counties in the state. If Clinton can carry Keene, she may pull a shocking upset. If Obama is winning statewide, he should carry this city comfortably.
Another good early bellwether is the town of Bow, just south of Concord. Lots of upscale, well-educated Democrats here. Again, if Clinton carries Bow, maybe it will be a longer night than expected. If Obama takes Bow comfortably, things are going as predicted for him.
Other key towns to watch: Rye and Exeter on the Seacoast; Bedford, Merrimack and Londonderry in the Interstate 93 corridor. All should be part of Obamaland if the polls are right.
To date, Barack Obama leads all Democrats in ad spending on WMUR-TV.
Obama: $2.1 million
Hillary Clinton: $1.65 million
John Edwards: $1.2 million
Bill Richardson: $700,000
In sum, Mitt Romney has outspent the entire Republican field of competitors by $1.4 million on WMUR. Here's a summary of the ad spending of other Republicans:
John McCain: $1.1 million
Rudy Giuliani: Just under $1 million
Ron Paul: $270,000
Mike Huckabee: $160,000
While listening to the Iowa returns come in, here are some figures on the candidates' ad buys on WMUR-TV, New Hampshire's only statewide commercial station:
These figures represent the candidates' complete ad buys on WMUR, from their first ad buy to last (barring any last-minute buys; numbers were checked yesterday afternoon).
Since his first ad in February 2007, Romney has spent a total of $3.9 million on advertising at WMUR.
His campaign has run 3,600 ads on WMUR, or more than 10 a day, every day, since he started.
Good evening --
Here are some aggregate numbers on ad spending at WMUR-TV, New Hampshire's only statewide commercial television station:
By primary eve, Democratic presidential candidates will have spent $6.3 million during this campaign season. (Corrected from earlier post.)
Republicans will have spent $6.4 million.
That's a total of $12.7 million in campaign advertising on WMUR during the past year, since Mitt Romney began running ads eleven months ago.
Happy 2008!
The Los Angeles Times offers a good view of the alleged battle for New Hampshire's independents between Barack Obama and John McCain. Unfortunately, they stuck it with a misleading headline:
McCain losing votes to Obama in N. H.
What's wrong with this head? Verb tense. The story itself amply demonstrates that McCain lost those voters some time ago.
Eight years ago, people really did see Bill Bradley and John McCain as two of a kind -- both independent mavericks bucking the party establishment candidates. They even did a joint appearance on behalf of campaign finance reform during the run-up to the primary. Nothing like that has happened this time -- of course, a lot has changed. Everybody laughs now when we think about the meme of the 2000 election, that Bush and Gore were essentially the same candidate, and that Bradley and McCain together presented the alternative to politics-as-usual.
And in the last two general elections, New Hampshire's undeclared voters have not been undecided between the two parties. In 2004, 56 percent of independents voted for John Kerry. Polling in 2007 indicates that 60 percent of undeclareds plan to vote in the Democratic primary. Is McCain's persona enough to turn a Democratic-leaning undeclared into a McCain voter?
My colleague Andrew Smith at the University of New Hampshire estimates that 20-25 percent of undeclared (not registered partisan) voters are truly independent voters.
There are roughly 375,000 undeclared voters right now in New Hampshire (out of a total of 850,000 registered voters). Maybe 40-45 percent of them will turn out to vote next Tuesday. (Roughly this percentage turned out in 2000, the last time we had contested primaries in both major political parties.) That's a universe of 160,000 voters.
Of those folks, let's say 25 percent of them are truly independent voters. That's roughly 40,000 voters. If EVERY ONE of them were deciding between Obama and McCain (and I have seen absolutely no evidence for this, other than a few anecdotes), that would constitute a "swing vote" of 8 percent, assuming an overall turnout of half a million New Hampshire voters next Tuesday.
Again, that 8 percent is a ceiling, not a floor. As my colleague Smith says, the "independent" undeclared voter here is likely very unengaged in politics. So their turnout rate will likely be lower than it will be for undeclared voters who are really partisans in disguise. And again, it is very, very probable that not every truly independent undeclared voter is deciding between Obama and McCain right now.
So my guess is that the number of New Hampshire voters deciding between Obama and McCain probably is no more than 3 to 4 percent of ALL likely primary voters, at most.
The Boston Globe piles on top of Mitt Romney today -- "Credibility pounded, Romney wrestles uncertainties," reads the front-page headline. Certainly the ride for the former Massachusetts governor has been anything but smooth the last few weeks.
So why are his "futures" the most expensive among all the Republican candidates on the Iowa Electronic Markets?
Right now, he is the only Republican candidate with his fate in his own hands.
Mike Huckabee could be the nominee, but first he has to win Iowa, and even then his path to the nomination is far from certain.
John McCain could be the nominee if he can win New Hampshire and South Carolina. This becomes especially plausible if Huckabee wins Iowa in three days. But that's not a certainty at this point, and so his fate is at least partly out of his hands.
Rudy Giuliani could be the nominee if the field is still scrambled, with no clear front-runner. That seems to depend on any number of things, but the bottom line is that none of his competitors can win more than two of the following: Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina.
What does Romney need to do to become the nominee? Win Iowa. And then win New Hampshire five days later.
Mitt's margin of victory arguably no longer matters, given the strength of his competition in both states. Romney could win Iowa and New Hampshire by a grand total of three percentage points, combined, and he still becomes the odds-0n favorite for the nomination. Three percentage points is enough to knock Huckabee and McCain out of serious contention, and it's enough to give Mitt Mo' headed into Michigan and then South Carolina.
So after all the ups and downs, Romney's overall strategy -- win Iowa, win New Hampshire, ride momentum to the nomination -- is still viable. And unlike the other guys, he does not have to depend on anybody else. He just has to win.
