Political Engagement

Transcript taken from WMUR, April 5, 2023. Written by Adam Sexton. 

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The decision of the Democratic National Committee to remove the New Hampshire primary from its first-in-the-nation spot could be seen as the latest in an ongoing series of changes.

Wayne Lesperance, president of New England College, said DNC’s decision is significant, but the feel of the primary has been changing over the past several years.

“If you pay close attention to what’s been happening over the last 12 years, 15 years, the primary has evolved in a way that it has also eroded what we think of when we think of the presidential primary,” Lesperance said.

He said that President Barack Obama, for example, held huge events in the Granite State, a move away from the local, retail politics the New Hampshire primary has been known for.

“We saw national debates taking folks away from New Hampshire,” he said. “It’s the nationalization of the primary process, where we’re talking about national issues, not so much about issues that are important to Granite Staters or local voters.”

Lesperance said Granite Staters aren’t seeing as many events like house parties or visits to the Red Arrow Diner.

“There’s less of those things happening and more emphasis on big national events that are more choreographed that attendees are invited to instead of being open to the public,” he said. “So, there has been a slide in the size of the primary in a direction that is really inconsistent with its origins that should have concerned us all along.”

He said the pressure to end New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation status is nothing new.

“Every cycle, there seems to be somebody that wants to replace us as a lead-off contest,” he said. “We’ve gotten pretty good at maintaining ourselves.”

The DNC’s move could help push Republicans to consider changing the primary schedule.

“I’m sure there are Republicans also talking about, ‘Is New Hampshire the best place for us to start? Is a swing state the best place for us to start?’” Lesperance said. “And I fear that once that door has been opened, that we’re going to have even more of a fight uphill fight going forward.”

He said New Hampshire should keep focusing on what the state does well.

“We emphasize the fact that our voters turn out, our voters pay attention and that primaries to Granite Staters are very much part of who we are. We see it in our DNA,” he said. “As long as we hold onto those things, I think we’ll be OK.”

Read the original article on WMUR’s website.

Excerpt taken from WMUR; February 8, 2023, Arielle Mitropoulos

“Gov. Sununu launches political fundraising organization amid speculation of 2024 presidential run”

Wayne Lesperance, a political science professor and president at New England College, said this move will allow Sununu to test the waters with donors and voters before formally jumping in the race.

“This is very common, a very common practice among candidates, especially at a very high level,” Lesperance said. “So there’s no surprise here.”

Unlike political political action committees, with this type of organization, the names of donors don’t have to be released.

“That sort of becomes a way forward for a potential candidate to make the decision to go to the next step,” Lesperance said.

And even with no announcement on the calendar yet, Lesperance said this move is yet another box checked off in the governor’s pre-presidential run checklist.

“Boy, I keep an eye on Chris Sununu,” Lesperance said. “He seems to be doing an awful lot of things that indicate he has an interest in running for president.”

The governor is in Washington for the National Governor’s Association meeting Wednesday night.

President Joe Biden is expected to be there, and Sununu said he will bring up his frustration over the Democratic National Committee’s move to take away New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary.

Excerpt taken from the Concord Monitor; November 5, 2022; by Paul Steinhauser

“On the Trail: ‘Dilemma for voters’ on this year’s ballot”

With the partisanship that’s gridlocked Washington increasingly infiltrating Concord, and no letup of the bitter acrimony and trading of verbal fire between the Democratic and Republican parties and their candidates in this year’s election campaign, a veteran New Hampshire-based political scientist argues that Granite Staters face a dilemma as they get ready to cast a ballot in the midterm elections.

“There’s a significant number of voters that would probably agree that they don’t have good choices,” Wayne Lesperance, interim president of the Henniker-based New England College, tells the Monitor.

“Voters, and especially independent voters, are not really interested in the labels of R and D. They’re interested in the people who are going to address the concerns they have. And the concerns they have are the economy, affordable electricity and heating oil, the kitchen table issues,” Leseperance said.

Pointing to New Hampshire voters, who are often socially moderate but fiscally conservative centrists, Lesperance emphasized “when they hear about stealing the election and democracy’s on the ballot, climate change, those are important. But for them, the kitchen table issues are paramount. As a result, they don’t have good choices,” he argued.

“There’s a lot of blaming the Democrats and the Biden administration for where we are now. And then they look at the Republican options and these folks are talking in a way that’s very dogmatic, the Trump cult of personality,” Lesperance said. “They want someone who’s going to offer solutions to what they’re experiencing.”

Excerpt taken from the New Hampshire Bulletin; November 1, 2022; by Annmarie Timmins

“Election experts: Trump-Sununu dynamic a ‘fascinating’ boost for right-wing Republicans”

This story was updated Nov. 1, 2022 at 9 a.m. to add a second primary endorsement from Gov. Chris Sununu.

Former President Donald Trump hasn’t campaigned alongside the Republicans running for Congress. And he didn’t endorse in the primary. He didn’t have to.

Don Bolduc, Karoline Leavitt, and Robert Burns made it onto the Nov. 8 ballot by embracing Trump or his views more loudly and proudly than their primary challengers. Leavitt and Burns continue to, defying campaign tradition that says general elections require moderating toward the middle, a better place to win over centrist Republicans and undecided voters.

Tradition may not apply here because all three have gotten the support of Gov. Chris Sununu, a popular Republican who thrives in the middle; a September poll from the UNH Survey Center showed independent voters favoring Sununu over Democratic challenger Tom Sherman 84 percent to 8 percent. He’s rarely embraced Trump and once even called him “(expletive) crazy,” yet has stayed off the former president’s bad side.

“It’s actually quite a fascinating dynamic to have Donald Trump and Chris Sununu, who I would argue represent very different perspectives in the Republican Party – or different approaches anyway – actually working sort of together,” said Wayne Lesperance, political science professor and interim president of New England College. “It’s unplanned, but it’s a complementary relationship for Republican candidates who had to tack very much to the right during the primary, and now are trying to find a credible way to the middle.”

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Excerpt taken from Fox News; November 1, 2022; by Paul Steinhauser

“Final countdown: Here’s what’s at stake in next week’s midterm elections”

Former President Barack Obama is back on the campaign trail on a simple but important mission to try and save the Democratic Party from getting drenched by what could end up being a powerful red wave in next week’s midterm elections.

“I’m here to ask you to vote,” Obama urged Democrats as he headlined large rallies in three crucial battleground states this past weekend.

Obama, who remains the most popular person in the Democratic Party nearly six years after he left the White House, is trying to perform some last-minute political magic as his party desperately tries to hold onto razor-thin congressional majorities.

Tuesday marks one week until Election Day 2022 when about a third of the Senate, all 435-members of the House of Representatives, and governors’ offices in 36 of the 50 states are up for grabs.

Democrats are facing historical headwinds — the party that wins the White House traditionally suffers major setbacks in the ensuing midterm elections — and a very rough political climate fueled by record inflation, soaring crime and a border crisis, and these are accentuated by President Joe Biden’s rebounding but still underwater approval ratings.

“It’s real simple. People are fed up with open borders, high inflation, high crime. They’re just fed up with this stuff, and the Democrats did it,” GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in an interview with Fox News on Monday.

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Excerpt taken from the NH Journal; October 24, 2022; by Michael Graham

“RCP Moves NH-01 Race Into ‘Leans GOP’ Column”

The rising red tide seen by Republican and Democratic election analysts alike has reached New Hampshire’s First Congressional District. That is the opinion of Real Clear Politics, one of the nation’s most respected political news sites. It has moved the NH-01 race between Rep. Chris Pappas (D) and Karoline Leavitt into the “leans GOP” column.

New Hampshire politicos say they aren’t surprised.

“All indications point to an election outcome consistent with past midterms – the party out of power will gain seats,” said New England College political science professor Wayne Lesperance. “The First Congressional District is shaping up to follow that pattern. Inflation and broader concerns about the economy continue to fill GOP sails.”

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Excerpt taken from the Concord Monitor; October 8, 2022; by Paul Steinhauser

“Don Bolduc works to unify GOP voters in Senate race”

“GOP voters are motivated to win. They have heard repeatedly that the Senate is in play and a win in New Hampshire improves their chances to control that body. So, it’s not surprising that differences among members of the party are set aside for that common goal of defeating Sen. Hassan,” veteran New Hampshire based political scientist Wayne Lesperance said.

Lesperance, the interim president of Henniker-based New England College, noted that “at the end of the day, whatever their differences may be, they share the desire to turn that Senate seat red.”

With polls indicating the Senate race in New Hampshire remains close – Hassan was ahead of Bolduc by six points according to Saint Anselm College Survey Center – the bigger question remains whether Bolduc can win the crucial votes of Granite State independents.

Pointing to his past stance on abortion, his previous comments in support of former President Donald Trump’s unproven claims the 2020 election was “rigged” and “stolen” and his views on COVID vaccines and on making changes to Medicare and Social Security, the Hassan campaign and the New Hampshire Democratic Party argue that Bolduc is too extreme for mainstream Granite Staters.

“’Don Bolduc is the most extreme US Senate nominee in my lifetime, and he could not be more out of step with New Hampshire. Bolduc would be a yes vote to ban abortion nationwide, he wants to end Social Security and Medicare as we know it and he continues to lie about his record of pushing election fraud conspiracy theories,” state Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley charged.

But amid a political climate fueled by record inflation that favors Republicans, Lesperance said that Bolduc still has a chance to win over independent voters.

“Poll after poll reveals that what voters care most about are economic issues. What’s more, voters continue to blame both President Biden and the Democrats in Congress for economic challenges in their everyday life,” Lesperance said. “As a result, there is an opportunity for Gen. Bolduc to win over independents especially as he moderates his stances for the general election. He certainly benefits from the short memories of most voters who have not paid close attention through the primary process.”

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Excerpt taken from the Concord Monitor; September 23, 2022; by Paul Steinhauser

“On the trail: Close contest for Congress in 2nd District”

Veteran New Hampshire-based political scientist Wayne Lesperance called the close contest in the Second District “surprising given Kuster’s incumbency, fundraising prowess, and focus on issues like abortion rights” in the wake of the late June blockbuster opinion by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court of the United States to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, throwing the combustible issue of legalized abortion back to the states. Democrats have spotlighted abortion in the wake of the ruling, which has appeared to energize their party’s base.

Excerpt taken from Fox News; September 18, 2022; by Paul Steinhauser

Excerpt taken from The New York Times; July 15, 2022; by Dan Berry

“What Is the Free State Project?”

Today’s newsletter is a guest dispatch from Dan Barry, who wrote in The New York Times on Sunday about how the surprise victory of a hardcore libertarian movement in a small New Hampshire town led to swift backlash — and a harsh lesson in the importance of showing up to vote. Here, Dan explains the group behind the clash.

For nearly two decades now, and without much national attention, restless libertarians everywhere have been relocating to New Hampshire. They are drawn less by the spectacular fall foliage than by a literal interpretation of a state motto more often stamped on license plates than uttered in conversation: “Live Free Or Die.”

Much of this migration has been driven by a nonprofit organization called the Free State Project. Its adherents believe that by moving en masse to a small state with an inordinately large legislature — 400 representatives and 24 senators for 1.38 million people — they can effect change to their liking. That is: limited government, selfreliance, limited government, free markets and limited government.

After all, who’s against liberty? But it remains an open question whether the movement’s interpretation of liberty — emphasizing individual rights over the common good — has gained significant traction.

In 2016, for example, the Free State Project announced with fanfare that 20,000 people had signed a pledge to move to New Hampshire within the next five years and to help create a society in which the “maximum role” of government would be to protect individual rights. People supporting gun rights, gay marriage and fiscal conservatism are welcome; racists, bigots and those promoting violence are not.

“Are you tired of the government always getting bigger?” the Free State Project’s website asks. “Do you feel like the only person around who just wants to Live Free? You are not alone!” Six years later, the group says the number of Free Staters in New Hampshire stands at 6,232.

“It seems to have been easy to get the pledges,” said Wayne Lesperance, a political science professor at New England College in Henniker, N.H., who has studied the Free State movement.

“Certainly the 20,000 haven’t materialized. There’s no data to support they’ve come closer than 6,000, and even that sounds high.”

Lesperance said that the Free State Project — which, like New Hampshire, is overwhelmingly white — “appeals to disaffected white folks who may not want to deal with the complexities of race relations.”

He emphasized that he saw no links whatsoever to white supremacist ideology. Rather, there is “a pining for a time when life was much simpler,” he said. “A time when people were left alone.”

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