Healing The New Hampshire Divide After The 2020 Election: Watch

CONCORD, NH — During New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary presidential campaign, Patch attempted to speak with as many candidates as possible to ask them a simple question: If elected, what will you do to heal the national divide?

As noted in the story published just before the election, No Matter Who Wins NH Primary, U.S. May Still Be A Divided Nation, in asking this question, there are clear truths: Historically, the country has been divided for a long time and was before the election of President Donald Trump, and as a people, politically, America has had unifying moments often in times of tragedy and dynamic changes.

Traveling back in time, over generations, there have been flash points in America and sweeps of political movements and decisions that have shown this: From the election of Barack Obama to the presidency and then the rise of the Tea Party; the Sept. 11 attacks and the invasion and occupation of Iraq; the 2000 election, essentially a tie, settled by the Supreme Court; concerns about debts and deficits raised by Ross Perot that inspired a movement of millions in 1992 but also led to the siphoning off of many Republican votes from George H.W. Bush and the election of Bill Clinton which then led to the subsequent sweep of Republicans in Congress two years later and the impeachment of the president for high crimes and misdemeanors; the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 after Iran took the United States embassy and its employees hostage in the wake of the Shah being toppled as well as Reagan's re-election in 1984 and the end of the Cold War, too; and, also, the election of Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer who came out of nowhere in the wake of the resignation of Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal to win the presidency in 1976.

All were dynamic and showed, for differing reasons, that America's political divide has been with us for many, many years.

Surprisingly, or maybe not so, most of the candidates running for president did not want to speak about healing the divide.

And, disappointingly, this divide has trickled down to the state, regional, and local level.

It is expected during the election season: Politics is a blood sport. But, at the end of the game, it is time to govern. And that is getting increasingly harder and harder to do with each election cycle for a myriad of reasons including the perpetual campaign never ever seems to end. This will continue to be even harder as New Hampshire and the United States navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last week, Patch asked both Gov. Chris Sununu, R-NH, and state Sen. Dan Feltes, D-NH, a similar question: If you are elected, what will you do to bring people together in the state of New Hampshire.

Feltes, the challenger, said he did not really want to be governor to be governor; he wanted to serve to get things done for working people and working families. He said the state Senate had worked in a bipartisan manner to move public policy forward and added that the beauty of New Hampshire is that no one person has a monopoly on good ideas.

Watch his full response below.

Sununu countered that the worst of the political divide was more recently — with the protests during the Iraq war and the attacks on law enforcement in the waning years of the Obama Administration. But, he said, his focus would be to lead by example, talking to all decisionmakers together, staying off social media, and being positive, too.

Watch his full response below.

Gardner On Turnout

New Hampshire has already set political records for the 2020 election season: The most ballots in the first-in-the-nation primary ever, nearly 301,000 votes; the September primary was the highest turnout of a primary ever, at nearly 305,000 ballots cast; the most absentee ballots ever were cast during that primary, slightly more than 90,300; and the most absentee ballots ever cast in a general election — 223,126, so far, out of 244,109 requested.

But will turnout overall be a record on Nov. 3?

Bill Gardner, the nation's longest serving secretary of state, said Monday, Yes, in actual votes. For 2020, he was betting 800,000 ballots would be cast or about 45,000 more than 2016, the last highest election turnout.

"Or quite a bit more than that," Gardner said, adding he was being conservative at saying 800,000.

Currently, there are more than 1 million registered voters in New Hampshire. An 80 percent turnout would be unprecedented.

Gardner spoke last week about turnout for 2020.

More absentee ballots may be requested, too.

"The requests will go up but not by a lot," he added.

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