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New Hampshire is often noted for its moderate politics and its status as a prominent swing state. Voters selected Republicans for office during the 19th and 20th centuries until 1992. Since then, the state has been considered as a swing state, and the Cook Political Report now classifies New Hampshire as D+1, reflecting a very small advantage for Democrats. Since 2006, control of the state legislature and New Hampshire's congressional seats have switched back and forth between Republicans and Democrats in a series of wave elections. Due to its large State House, the annual town meetings in most communities, and the prominence of the New Hampshire Primary every four years, New Hampshire has been noted for its high level of political participation and retail politics. Some have called politics the "state sport."〔http://archives.hippopress.com/090903/mQA.html〕 ==Electoral shift== New Hampshire has undergone a partisan shift since 1992. Historically, New Hampshire was a staunchly conservative state and regularly voted Republican, with only Hillsborough County leaning Democratic before the 1970s. Some sources trace the founding of the Republican Party to the town of Exeter in 1853. Prior to 1992, New Hampshire had only strayed from the Republican Party for three presidential candidates—Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson. The state voted for Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan twice by overwhelming majorities. Beginning in 1992, New Hampshire became a swing state in both national and local elections. The state supported Democrats Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, John Kerry in 2004, and Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. It was the only U.S. state to support George W. Bush in the 2000 election and go Democratic in the 2004 election. The state elected two Democrats to the Governorship during this period. The voters selected Democrats in New Hampshire as they did nationally in 2006 and 2008. In 2006, Democrats won both congressional seats (electing Carol Shea-Porter in the 1st district and Paul Hodes in the 2nd district), re-elected Governor John Lynch, and gained a majority on the Executive Council and in both houses of the legislature for the first time since 1911. Democrats had not held both the legislature and the governorship since 1874. Neither U.S. Senate seat was up for a vote in 2006. In 2008, Democrats retained their majorities, governorship, and congressional seats; and former governor Jeanne Shaheen defeated incumbent Republican John E. Sununu for the U.S. Senate in a rematch of the 2002 contest. At the end of the 2008 election cycle, voters registered Democratic outnumbered those registered Republican. A 2006 University of New Hampshire survey found that New Hampshire residents who had moved to the state from Massachusetts were mostly Republican. The influx of new Republican voters from Massachusetts has resulted in Republican strongholds in the Boston exurban border towns of Hillsborough and Rockingham counties, while other areas have become increasingly Democratic. The study indicated that immigrants from states other than Massachusetts tended to lean Democratic.〔''New Hampshire Union-Leader'': "Hey, don't blame Massachusetts." November 12, 2008.〕 In the 2010 midterm elections, New Hampshire voted out both of its Democratic members in the House of Representatives in favor of Republicans. Republicans also won control of both chambers of the State House by veto-proof majorities, while Governor John Lynch, a Democrat, won a fourth term, unprecedented in modern times. Two years later, in the 2012 elections, New Hampshire voted out both of its Republican members in the House of Representatives in favor of Democrats. At the same time, voters returned Democrats to the majority in the State House of Representatives, while Republicans held on to a narrow 13-11 majority in the State Senate, despite losing the popular vote. Democrat Maggie Hassan won a surprisingly large 12% margin of victory, with 54.6% of the vote in the gubernatorial election, becoming the first Democrat to succeed another Democrat as Governor of New Hampshire since 1854. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Politics of New Hampshire」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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