November 13, 2008

A new electorate
Dems outnumber Republicans in NH
by Jeff Mucciarone news@hippopress.com

New Hampshire is changing.

In the past eight years, the electorate shifted dramatically to the Democratic side — noteworthy in a state that once was reliably Republican for state and national offices. In the 2006 election, for the first time since 1874, New Hampshire Democrats held the governor’s office and majorities in both the state House and Senate. This year, majorities held in the Statehouse, both Democratic U.S. Representatives kept their seats, former Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen bested Republican Senator John Sununu, and Democratic Gov. John Lynch easily won reelection to a third term.

Democrats rode a wave of excitement from the top of the ticket down right into office.

Did longtime Republican voters switch it up and cross party lines to cast votes? Demographers say no. They say Republicans voted for Republicans and Democrats voted for Democrats. There are just a whole lot more Democrats in New Hampshire than there used to be, officials said.

“There’s just not that many [Republicans],” said Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire survey center.

The survey center’s final poll prior to the election indicated New Hampshire’s electorate identified itself as 46 percent core Democrats versus 33 percent core Republicans.

“I think that what happened sort of reinforced what we could see in the data we were looking at before the election,” said Ken Johnson, senior demographer at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire and sociology professor. “Demographic factors did have an impact.”

Smith said the election wasn’t much of a surprise from a polling perspective. “It’s pretty much exactly what we predicted,” he said.

The Granite State’s mobility isn’t doing any favors for its conservative base. Comparing New Hampshire voters in 2000 and 2008, Smith said about one third of voters this year either were too young to vote in 2000 or didn’t live in New Hampshire at the time. The problem for Republicans is that Democrats are capturing a big chunk of the new voters.

From 2000 to 2008, about 321,000 people moved into New Hampshire, which is significant since the state’s electorate is about 991,000 people, according to the report Many New Voters Make the Granite State One to Watch in November, written by Smith, Johnson and UNH Professor of Political Science Dante Scala. While some people who moved in have since moved back out, researchers estimated about 208,000 of the people who moved in have remained. Steering the shift further, about 292,000 people left New Hampshire during the same time period, with about 199,000 of those not returning. More than 400,000 potential voters moved in and out of the state from 2000 to 2008, the report indicated.

Meanwhile, about 113,000 people in New Hampshire turned 18 between 2000 and 2008. Conversely, 81,000 people died during that time. Johnson said nationally Republican voters are often older, so with so many younger voters coming of age who tend to fall on the Democratic side, New Hampshire likely lost a substantial Republican voice from the thousands of people who died since 2000.

Considering migrants moving into the state and people coming of voting age during the eight-year period, there were about 321,000 new voters in New Hampshire prior to the Nov. 4 election, according to the report. 

Residents who came of age during the eight-year swing, and migrants who moved in during the same period, identify with the Democratic party at 53 percent and 52 percent respectively. Democrats made up 43 percent of the established voter base, while 39 percent of the established base was Republican, the report said.

It’s not a Democratic majority now, Smith said prior to the election, but it does represent a plurality. “Every generic Democrat has a better chance than a generic Republican,” he said. His point appears to have been confirmed as Senator Judd Gregg has been left the only Republican in major office in the Granite State.

In the 2002 race for the U.S. Senate, Sununu narrowly beat Shaheen. In the rematch this year, the playing field had changed dramatically, as 25 to 30 percent of the state’s current population wasn’t in New Hampshire in 2002, Johnson said. Sununu simply wasn’t talking to the same voters he was in 2002.

“That’s how demographics play right out in the election itself,” Johnson said.

The other migration stream that could have an effect on the state’s formerly Republican base is the loss of people in their 50s and 60s who are moving elsewhere, typically to the Sun Belt. But Johnson said residents tend only to be sensitive to the streams that are coming in.

Johnson didn’t attribute Democratic success solely to migratory patterns.

“Barack Obama did well in a lot of other places than New Hampshire,” Johnson said. “There are more dynamics at play.”

Reading message boards beneath election stories on various New Hampshire publications, its evident many Republican-siding Granite Staters blame the Democratic tilt on liberals from Massachusetts who are crossing the border. But demographers say there is a bit more happening than just that.

 “A big source of immigrants is Massachusetts, but New Hampshire receives fairly significant streams from other parts as well,” Johnson said. “It’s not as if everyone who is coming is from Massachusetts.”

Though it still might be easy to blame Massachusetts, a state that has long bled deep blue, Smith said Bay State migrants are not as Democratic as migrants from other Northeast states. Perhaps fully opposite of public perception, Smith said Massachusetts migrants are typically moving just across the border — first for cheaper homes, second for lower taxes and third because they think the Bay State has too many liberals. The towns just over the border are the most conservative and Republican in the state, Smith said.

States like Virginia are experiencing similar migratory patterns, regarding people moving from a large urban core, in that case Washington, D.C., into Virginia’s suburban and rural landscape, Smith said.

Smith said he expected New Hampshire’s now-blueish tint to darken in coming years. He said the state’s been fairly balanced for many elections. Democrats have won four of the last five presidential elections in New Hampshire. The state has chosen six Democrats for governor in the last seven elections and congressional elections have tended Democratic as well.

Party shift typically happens from the top down.  New Hampshire began its Republican trend in the 1960s as it chose Barry Goldwater and then Richard Nixon. By 1994, the whole region had swung Republican, Smith said.

The pendulum is swinging again.

“Coming and going, births and deaths, that’s a part of demography that really you don’t hear talked about all that much,” Johnson said.

Most studies look at demographic data the way marketers do, such as the likelihood of white women ages 30 or older to purchase minivans. Looking at the coming and going can give a different, and perhaps clearer, view of how populations change, Johnson said.

Based solely on demographics, Smith said predicting this election was fairly simple looking back, but toss in the ongoing wars in the Middle East and the economic meltdown, and it likely didn’t matter who the candidates were for either party; Republicans were out of luck.

Smith didn’t see any surprises in state races either, as Democrats held their 14-10 majority in the Senate. He figured it was possible Democrats could lose one or gain one, but nothing beyond that.

New Hampshire’s state House of Representatives remained a lone bright spot for Republicans this year as they won back 17 seats, after losing 91 seats two years ago. Smith said up until about one month ago he thought it was even possible Republicans would actually take the majority back in the House, largely because of the way districts lay out.

A changing population
A widely held belief in New Hampshire is that it has one of the oldest populations in the country. Not so, said Ken Johnson, senior demographer at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire and sociology professor.

New Hampshire’s median age is in fact one of the oldest in the country, but, Johnson said, the median age isn’t the best frame of reference in this instance. More appropriate would be the percentage of people who are 65 or older, he said.

In those terms, New Hampshire is the 31st-oldest state in the country, which is right in line with the national average. Still, Johnson said the population is “very middle-aged,” but not old, especially when compared with a state like Florida.

Along with the perception that New Hampshire is one of the oldest states, there’s also a strong perception that the state is losing big portions of its young people. Johnson said it is true that many young people are moving out of the state, but it’s not unlike many other places in the country. He said the common scenario is that college or high school graduates want to see a new place and move elsewhere, generally to a large urban core, which in New Hampshire’s case is typically Boston or New York City. Likewise, in the Midwest, young people migrate to Chicago and Minneapolis, Johnson said.

Places like Coos County have been losing lots of young adults for decades, while Rockingham and Hillsborough counties are experiencing growth in younger folks, Johnson said.

Cities don’t hold on to those young people. Once they reach their late 20s or early 30s they’re ready to have a family and then they move out of the urban core to do so. Johnson said that’s where New Hampshire’s advantage lies, because it is an enticing location to raise a family.

Further, the average household moving to New Hampshire earns $12,000 more annually than the average household income established in the state.

“It would seem to me that families with children coming in would be a good thing,” Johnson said. “There are certainly a lot of Midwestern states that would give anything to have them coming in. Many states would be overjoyed to have that kind of migration stream.”

The slowing down of the housing market can have a substantial effect as well. As people in their late 20s look to move out of their city condos and homes, they are having trouble selling, which kind of leaves them “frozen” in the city, Johnson said. The Chicago area’s population grew for the first time in about six or seven years, and Johnson attributes that to fewer people leaving the city, in many cases because they couldn’t sell their condos to move to suburbs and beyond.

“As the housing market has slowed down, that has fairly significant demographic effects,” Johnson said. It may be having an effect in the Granite State as well. “The demographic trends are playing out all through the changing population structure of New Hampshire.”

Johnson wondered if the inflow, which has slowed in the last couple years, will continue. He figured at least part of it was tied to the housing market. It would be important for the migration of families to pick up again, because while the state’s population isn’t all that old now, its substantial middle-aged population isn’t getting any younger, he said.