The problem for Republicans is that there is almost no path to victory for them anymore:
This is what the 2012 map looked like (Obama won the state 52-46). The 2nd Congressional district is starting to vote like its neighbor Vermont. You combine that with shrinking Republican margins in the 1st district and you get a "lean/likely Democratic" status for 2016.
Just for comparison, this is the 2000 NH map (Bush won the state 48-47):
The 2nd district is killing the GOP in NH. Heck, it trended and even SWUNG towards the Dems in a wave year (2014):
This is the 2014 NH Trend map for the Senate race.
Yes, it's especially curious to me that its the rural areas swinging hard left here. NH/VT/MA-01 is the only place in the country that we've conclusively seen rural whites do that recently. The closest comparable situation is with the ancestral Hispanic population in rural northern NM/southern CO.
