New Hampshire’s famous first-in-the-nation primary is a little over a month away and the battle to win over voters is on.
The race is in flux, especially for Republicans, where establishment candidates such as Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco Rubio and Chris Christie are battling to leave New Hampshire with a strong showing that will position them to take on front-runner Donald Trump. A Boston Herald survey out December 17 had Trump ahead with 26% of the vote, 14 points ahead of Rubio and Ted Cruz who were tied for second place.
On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders — from neighboring Vermont — is still hoping to give Hillary Clinton a run for her money. The Herald had Sanders ahead of Clinton by two points, within the survey’s margin of error.
White House hopefuls including Trump, Clinton, Bush and Kasich are swarming the state this week. And understanding the state’s political geography is key to winning.
New Hampshire has changed over the past 12 years from being safely Republican to a swing state, with Democrats winning the last three presidential elections by slim margins. The state is also famous for the large percentage of voters registered as “undeclared” — these are voters who can vote in either the Republican or Democrat primaries but often lean consistently to one party.
Here’s a map to help you get to know the political geography of this tiny state that will play a big role in determining the next president. Dante Scala, associate professor of Political Science at the University of New Hampshire, divides the state up into four major sections.
The Core
Hillsborough and Rockingham counties stretch along the southern border with Massachusetts and make up a little more than half of the electorate in New Hampshire. The area holds the state’s major cities, such as Manchester and Nashua.
Voters in this area are diverse, said Scala, with not just cities but also prosperous suburban towns like Bedford, one of the most Republican areas of the state.
“A lot of the growth that you’ve seen in New Hampshire over the past 20, 30 years has occurred in these two counties, which in some ways represent the outer suburban ring of metropolitan Boston,” Scala tells CNN.
The region represents the modern base of the Republican party, said Scala, even as many predicted the area would grow less conservative as residents from liberal Massachusetts moved into the southern part of New Hampshire, and it has remained a GOP stronghold.
The Core Border
Just north of the Core, Merrimack and Strafford counties include the state capitol of Concord and Durham, home to the University of New Hampshire.
Scala said that half a century ago, Merrimack leaned heavily Republican, but with Concord and other prosperous towns growing, it now leans slightly Democratic.
Merrimack is home to several bellwether areas such as the town of Bow just outside of Concord.
“When election night rolls around in a general election how the town of Bow goes, whether it goes to Republicans or Democrats, usually will be a good signal of what kind of night it’s going to be for one major party or the other,” Scala said.
Strafford county on the other hand shows contrasting sides of the state. Highly educated Democrats around UNH have made the county strongly Democratic for decades, but north of Durham you’ll find more rural areas sympathetic to Republicans.
“It’s one of the most interesting counties that no one ever talks about in New Hampshire because it’s got this mix of polar opposites, very strong liberal Democrats and Tea Party Republicans. It should be a place where Donald Trump does well if he’s going to do well anywhere, in working class mill cities like say Rochester and Somersworth,” Scala said.
The Connecticut River Valley
Made of three counties stretching along the Vermont border, Cheshire, Sullivan and Grafton, this region only makes up about one out of six voters in the state but because of its liberal leaning population it has outsized importance.
“Arguably over the last decade, it’s been more powerful than those two giant counties I mentioned, Hillsborough and Rockingham county put together, and that’s because of how strongly Democratic the Connecticut River Valley has become,” Scala said.
The liberal population is fed by the presence of colleges like Dartmouth in Hanover and Keene State College in Keene as well as spill over from the liberal state of Vermont.
Scala also said that retirees from liberal leaning states like New Jersey have moved up into the area, at least for the summer and fall, bringing their politics with them.
The North
Granite Staters might quibble about what exactly defines the “north country,” but it usually includes Belknap, Carroll and Coos counties as well as parts of Grafton.
Belknap and Carroll hold the lakes region of the state and the many tourists it attracts, as well as one famous Republican resident. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney owns a house on Lake Winnipesaukee in Wolfeboro, a strongly Republican area.
Further north into Carroll county is the Maine border and more rural areas that are heavily reliant on a recreational tourist industry, said Scala. The area is Republican but has drifted Democratic over time.
The “true north” of the region, past Mount Washington, is considered to be Coos county and includes old mill towns like Berlin and Gorham.
“Every presidential candidate worth his or her salt makes that trek way up north,” Scala said. “They may not visit there often but everyone has to visit there at least once to be considered an authentic New Hampshire campaign.”
Coos has suffered the most from the disappearance of the manufacturing industry, said Scala, with significant population loss over the decades.