On election night 2000, New Hampshire sprung up as a big red surprise on the national landscape. From that election to this one, New Hampshire is the only state to have swapped colors in the Democrats' favor.
Although the state voted Republican by one percentage point in the last presidential election, it has since fallen solidly into Democratic hands, with the latest polls giving Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry a six-point lead.
Statewide, Republicans have mobilized to rally support around the president, despite the polls' shift from red to blue.
The New Hampshire College Republicans will be trying to reverse that trend by recruiting conservative students at the organization's 12 chapters around the state. It hopes to increase enrollment at the state's universities, some of which have already seen a jump in participation.
"At UNH they went from 54 members last year to 356 this year" said Torivio Fodder '05, State College Republican chairman.
But to appeal to New Hampshire's independent majority and reverse his standing, Bush will have to continue to emphasize the centrist message he harped on during the Republican National Convention. New Hampshire voters tend to vote Republican, except on social issues, according to former Rockefeller Center director Linda Fowler.
"The president's emphasis on social issues has turned off voters," Fowler said.
In 2000, Bush carried the state by just 7000 votes, with 22,000 voting for Nader. A recent poll by the Rasmussen Reports, an independent public opinion firm, found three percent of those polled planning to vote for Nader. If Bush were to make a late move in the polls, he would need to not only capture some Kerry supporters but also counter any last minute defections from Nader to Kerry.
New Hampshire holds just four electoral votes, but those votes won the 2000 election and the state will be an important battleground for Bush.
The president visited the state as recently as Monday, and will most likely be making more visits in the final weeks of the election.
Although the state had traditionally voted Republican from 1976 until 1992, Clinton managed to take it in both 1992 and 1996.
"Clinton was a centrist Democrat who ran on middle class tax cuts and made an effort to distance himself from the liberal wing of his party, and that helped him in New Hampshire" Fowler said.
