Keller @ Large: New Hampshire A Fascinating Election Day Storyline
BOSTON (CBS) – With Election Day just two days away, there's plenty to talk about on the political scene.
WBZ-TV political analyst Jon Keller talked to Joe Mathieu of WGBH to preview Tuesday's election.
Both Keller and Mathieu wonder if this year's election hasn't been decided over the months of campaigning and instead determined by voters who made up their mind long ago.
"We talk about these 'October surprises' like we're going to have this big game changer at the last minute. Most Americans don't feel that way," said Mathieu. "Look at the year we've had. People have been to hell and back this year. None of that's changed. So if they were already weary of re-election President Trump at the beginning of the year, imagine where they are now."
Keller @ Large: Part 2
New Hampshire is setting up to be a fascinating race. Polls show Democrat Joe Biden in the lead over President Donald Trump, who narrowly lost the Granite State to Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Biden holds that lead in the polls despite the fact that New Hampshire has a Republican governor in Chris Sununu, has avoided major impact from the coronavirus pandemic, and was the first state where Trump won a 2016 primary.
"I'm fascinated by New Hampshire for a lot of the reasons you mentioned. It's a microcosm and it's the place where Donald Trump became a 'real boy' … It was the first state he won in a primary contest, the first time people took him seriously instead of just being a comedian of the campaign trail," Mathieu said.
Mathieu wonders if New Hampshire has changing political leanings with recent reports of people leaving cities to move into the suburbs.
"What I want to see is if there's evidence of changing demographics, people leaving cities like Boston for the suburbs or rural areas, in this case crossing the border into New Hampshire, perhaps even making the border signs more blue," said Mathieu. "So I'm wondering do we see a hardening of positions here. Will it be more moderate to liberal in the border towns, and more conservative in the rural areas? We could find New Hampshire to be really split along those lines."
