Can Boots On The Ground Keep New Hampshire From Turning Blue?

By Michael Graham, NH Journal

Can Republican door-knocking beat back a blue wave?

That’s the bet GOP candidates and their political allies are making in a midterm election cycle that looks very strong for Democrats.

How strong? Democrats had a 9-point advantage over Republicans on the generic ballot question in the latest Saint Anselm College Survey Center poll. That D+9 advantage is far larger than the D+2 margin New Hampshire polls found in 2024 and 2022. Democrats won every federal race in both those cycles and nearly took control of the New Hampshire House in 2022.

Polls also show Democrats are more motivated to vote. A Rasmussen Reports survey earlier this month found 66% of Democrats said they were very excited about voting in the midterms, compared with 60% of Republicans and 58% of unaffiliated voters.

With President Donald Trump underwater by more than 20 points, how do Republican candidates avoid political disaster? The old-fashioned way: Work harder and spend more money.

“There’s one thing that can close that gap. That’s resources,” Americans for Prosperity regional director Greg Moore said on a recent NHJournal podcast.

Moore, a veteran of many Granite State political campaigns, concedes that “there are headwinds for Republicans.” But he added that many of the GOP doom-and-gloomers have never seen a fully operational get-out-the-vote effort.

“Here in New Hampshire, you have a fantastically interesting U.S. Senate race where there is going to be a ton of resources spent, the likes of which we have not seen in this state, at least on the Republican side, since 2016,” Moore said.

He estimates that between AFP Action and Turning Point USA’s efforts, “the best estimate for the number of people working on the Republican side to get people out is about a thousand, and that dwarfs anything we’ve seen in the last decade.”

On Tuesday, AFP Action announced it’s upping the ante, deploying even more staff and volunteers across the Granite State for the final week of the campaign. That’s in addition to AFP Action’s report earlier this month that it had already knocked on nearly 300,000 doors and invested more than $11.5 million in New Hampshire voter contact efforts.

The data show Republicans are outspending Democrats as well, particularly in the U.S. Senate race, where Republican John E. Sununu has a $24 million advantage over Democrat Chris Pappas.

But is that enough to overcome what veteran political analyst Charlie Cook calls a “red undertow”?

Some campaign pros dismiss door-knocking and similar grassroots efforts as largely ineffective, particularly when the overall political climate is so bad. Republican strategist David Carney doesn’t agree.

Carney said testing he has studied, including comparisons with control groups, found a roughly 4% turnout increase from a neighbor’s door knock and a 2% to 2.5% lift from a paid canvasser.

“There’s no question that door knocking is one of the more effective techniques. It’s actually more effective than TV ads,” he said.

Republican candidates tell NHJournal that the reception they’re getting at the doors may not be quite as positive as in 2024, but it’s not terrible, either.

First-term state Sen. Victoria Sullivan, R-Manchester, is in an uphill race to hold her seat. She says the response has been good.

“I’m having great conversations at the doors. I’m actually not seeing any difference between now and two years ago. I’ve got folks that are really excited to come out to vote,” Sullivan said.

“Every once in a while, I hit a door and they don’t like Trump but they still recognize that New Hampshire Republicans are protecting the state from radical socialists.”

Rep. Jeannine Notter, R-Merrimack, on the other hand, told NHJournal, “I have never had to work this hard.”

Notter said she has met plenty of good people, but also encountered unexpectedly hostile Democrats. Asked whether Republicans are motivated to vote, she offered a qualified answer.

“Most are, but some I’ve talked to are evasive.”

With Pappas holding a steady lead in the polls and NH-02 Democratic U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander far ahead of challenger Lily Tang Williams, Granite State Democrats have reasons for optimism. They also have a track record of winning every federal race except one (U.S. Rep. Frank Guinta in 2014) going back to the 2010 Tea Party wave.

Add in the Trump factor, an unpopular war with Iran and diesel prices above $6 a gallon, and Tuesday could be a rough night for Republicans, regardless of the boots on the ground or the ads on TV.

But state Rep. Ross Berry has another data point that rebuts the “Democrat Blue Wave” theory: absentee voting.

Democrats typically enjoy a big lead in early voting. But according to secretary of state data, their margin is roughly in line with where it finished in 2022.

As of Monday, Oct. 26, voters had returned 34,609 absentee ballots: 13,914 from Democrats, 9,852 from Republicans and 10,843 from undeclared voters, Berry noted. That margin for Democrats is 2022 territory, not 2006.

“I look at this data and I just don’t see a blue wave right now,” Berry said. “But we have eight more days and anything can happen. If Republicans ignore the noise, show up and vote — we will win.”

Meanwhile, TPUSA is holding a series of turnout events in Manchester, Bedford and Keene this week. The organization calls them “Super Chase” events, modeled on a traditional campaign’s Super Saturday turnout push.

“We are focused on helping low-propensity voters get their votes in,” the group says.

Still, Carney cautioned, even an extensive ground operation has limits.

“It can’t cover up a bad candidate,” he said.

“If you’re a moron, you are going to get the moron share of the vote.”

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.