The Republican collapse in NH in the 1990s

[MT Treasurer]

Much has been made of the Republican collapse in VT in the 1990s, but it’s often overlooked that NH actually had a stronger Democratic swing/trend than VT in both 1992 and 1996. How did it go from Dukakis' second-worst state (it was more Republican than NE/WY/ID in 1988!) to a Republican-tilting and eventually stubbornly Democratic-leaning state which today has an all-Democratic congressional delegation and hasn’t voted Republican for President since 2000?

While NH and VT obviously share some cultural and political similarities and many of the factors which caused VT to turn into a Democratic state at the federal level paved the way for NH's transition as well, the two states are also quite different in many respects, with Republicans being more reliant on suburban/exurban support in NH, to give an obvious example.

Relative to the national result:

               VT                NH

1980      D+4              R+19
1984      D+1              R+20
1988      D+4.5           R+18
1992      D+10            R+5 (!)
1996      D+13.5         D+1.5 (!)
2000      D+9.5           R+2

The speed and magnitude of the swings in NH in 1992/1996 even when compared to Vermont are quite something.

[Sumner 1868]

How did it go from Dukakis' second-worst state (it was more Republican than NE/WY/ID in 1988!) to a Republican-tilting and eventually stubbornly Democratic-leaning state which today has an all-Democratic congressional delegation and hasn’t voted Republican for President since 2000?

The Angry Women watched the Willie Horton ad.

[libertpaulian]

The Northeastern suburbs were the first suburbs to fall to the Dems after Reagan's presidency.  Much like how Eisenhower's winning the South was a precursor to the Southern realignment that would occur in 1980-present, Clinton's winning the Northeastern suburbs in 1992 was the canary in the coal mine for the suburban realignment we're witnessing today.

It's all about those Boston suburbs/exurbs.

[Alcibiades]

The shift between 1988-1992 may have something to do with Bush breaking his “Read my lips, no new taxes” pledge. A substantial number of voters there were probably pretty much single-issue tax cut voters.

[RINO Tom]

The Northeastern suburbs were the first suburbs to fall to the Dems after Reagan's presidency.  Much like how Eisenhower's winning the South was a precursor to the Southern realignment that would occur in 1980-present, Clinton's winning the Northeastern suburbs in 1992 was the canary in the coal mine for the suburban realignment we're witnessing today.

It's all about those Boston suburbs/exurbs.

... Weren't the Boston exurbs the most Republican part of New Hampshire, like, right up until 2016?  And even in 2016, they were more Republican than the state as a whole...?

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

The Northeast in general was a disaster for the Republicans in the 90s as well. Bush Sr. would have won NJ in tied PV in 1992, Clinton only won it by 2 points. In 1996 Clinton blew Dole out of the water by 18 points.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Pat Buchanan's culture war speech.

If you supported Reagan-Bush because they were tough on communism, then the Cold War was over. If you voted Republican for tax cuts, Bush broke a pledge to raise them. If you thought Dukakis was weak on crime, Clinton bragged about his use of the death penalty in Arkansas and heavily pushed gun control. This left a very Southern evangelical-tinged Bush campaign centred on calling Clinton a pot-smoking philanderer and not much else.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

The Northeast in general was a disaster for the Republicans in the 90s as well. Bush Sr. would have won NJ in tied PV in 1992, Clinton only won it by 2 points. In 1996 Clinton blew Dole out of the water by 18 points.

I only briefly mentioned it above but I think gun control (which was first a national issue in 1992) was the key issue driving this change. At a stroke it helped neutralise the weak on crime attacks that had killed Democratic candidates in the Northeast suburbs in the past while creating a new and popular wedge issue for Democrats there - by 1996 Clinton was very effectively campaigning on banning "cop-killer bullets" etc..

Of course the flipside was the Democratic collapse in rural areas post-Brady Bill, beginning with the 1994 midterms.

[RINO Tom]

^ Wasn’t there a very pro-Second Amendment NH Democratic Party until, like, at least 2010?

[tinman64]

Pat Buchanan's culture war speech.

If you supported Reagan-Bush because they were tough on communism, then the Cold War was over. If you voted Republican for tax cuts, Bush broke a pledge to raise them. If you thought Dukakis was weak on crime, Clinton bragged about his use of the death penalty in Arkansas and heavily pushed gun control. This left a very Southern evangelical-tinged Bush campaign centred on calling Clinton a pot-smoking philanderer and not much else.

I was a registered Republican until Buchanan's speech, and have been Independent since.

[kcguy]

^ Wasn’t there a very pro-Second Amendment NH Democratic Party until, like, at least 2010?

Possibly.  As Governor of Vermont, Howard Dean had a 100% approval rating from the NRA.

[Brother Jonathan]

^ Wasn’t there a very pro-Second Amendment NH Democratic Party until, like, at least 2010?

Possibly.  As Governor of Vermont, Howard Dean had a 100% approval rating from the NRA.

Eh, yes and no. Dick Swett lost in 1994 largely because he voted for a bill to ban assault weapons, while Gov. Lynch really was pretty lax on guns (and signed a bipartisan bill in 2010 that eliminated basically all of the state's remaining regulations on knife ownership).  So the party was split before 2010 on the issue.

[Tamika Jackson]

Because a lot of those Southern NH suburbs are filled with former Massachusetts residents who moved to fleet the increasingly high tax rates.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

In addition to everything that's already been said, New Hampshire, like most of the rest of the Northeast, was also pretty badly hurt by the early-90s recession.

Unemployment in NH was nearly 8% in the February of 1991 (when the national average was 6.8%), and hadn't meaningfully improved by the summer of 1992 still at nearly 8% (as was the nationwide average) and still high heading into November 1992.

Looking at the FRED unemployment rate graph for New Hampshire, it looks like the state basically had a double-dip recession inside of the national recession: the first wave was October 1990 to March 1991, with a recovery through October 1991, with a second wave occurring through the spring of 1992.

So New Hampshire was hit pretty badly compared to most states in the early 1990s. But from February 1993 onwards, its economy did very well and the fall in the rate greatly outpaced the nation as a whole. NH unemployment fell under 5% in the spring of 1994 while the national average didn't fall below 5% until 1997, by which time NH unemployment was less than 3%.

So if we go with the It's The Economy, Stupid theory of voter behavior, NH voters probably thought: uniquely bad unemployment in 1992 = blame Republicans since HW is in power. Uniquely good unemployment after 1993 = credit Democrats, since Clinton was in power then.

EDIT: actually....it looks like New Hampshire unemployment started to rise from the spring of 1989, so did they actually have a triple-dip recession if we count February 1989 - March 1990 as the first wave of unemployment increases? It went from 3.2% to 5.8% during good national economic times.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

The shift between 1988-1992 may have something to do with Bush breaking his “Read my lips, no new taxes” pledge. A substantial number of voters there were probably pretty much single-issue tax cut voters.

Curious: how much evidence is there that the tax promise cost Bush votes in 1992? Okay yes, it was unpopular and True Conservatives hated him for this, but would these people instead have voted for tax raisers Clinton and Perot instead, or even stayed home and let them win?

If anything, the trash economy and culture war stuff would have been far more damaging. If anything, I feel like the early-90s recession is always forgotten when discussing 1992 and the tax pledge is always overemphasized.

Unless I am underestimating the level of fanaticism over a comparatively modest tax increase that somehow managed to overshadow literally everything else?

[Alcibiades]

The shift between 1988-1992 may have something to do with Bush breaking his “Read my lips, no new taxes” pledge. A substantial number of voters there were probably pretty much single-issue tax cut voters.

Curious: how much evidence is there that the tax promise cost Bush votes in 1992? Okay yes, it was unpopular and True Conservatives hated him for this, but would these people instead have voted for tax raisers Clinton and Perot instead, or even stayed home and let them win?

If anything, the trash economy and culture war stuff would have been far more damaging. If anything, I feel like the early-90s recession is always forgotten when discussing 1992 and the tax pledge is always overemphasized.

Unless I am underestimating the level of fanaticism over a comparatively modest tax increase that somehow managed to overshadow literally everything else?

You’re probably right on the national scale, and I have no hard evidence for my claim. It’s just that conservatism in NH has probably tended to be the most fiscally-focussed of anywhere in the US.

[Smash255]

The Northeastern suburbs were the first suburbs to fall to the Dems after Reagan's presidency.  Much like how Eisenhower's winning the South was a precursor to the Southern realignment that would occur in 1980-present, Clinton's winning the Northeastern suburbs in 1992 was the canary in the coal mine for the suburban realignment we're witnessing today.

It's all about those Boston suburbs/exurbs.

... Weren't the Boston exurbs the most Republican part of New Hampshire, like, right up until 2016?  And even in 2016, they were more Republican than the state as a whole...?

They still moved rapidly.  Bush won Hillsborugh by 32 points in 2008, he won it by 2 in 1992 and Clinton won by 8 in 1996.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

The shift between 1988-1992 may have something to do with Bush breaking his “Read my lips, no new taxes” pledge. A substantial number of voters there were probably pretty much single-issue tax cut voters.

Curious: how much evidence is there that the tax promise cost Bush votes in 1992? Okay yes, it was unpopular and True Conservatives hated him for this, but would these people instead have voted for tax raisers Clinton and Perot instead, or even stayed home and let them win?

If anything, the trash economy and culture war stuff would have been far more damaging. If anything, I feel like the early-90s recession is always forgotten when discussing 1992 and the tax pledge is always overemphasized.

Unless I am underestimating the level of fanaticism over a comparatively modest tax increase that somehow managed to overshadow literally everything else?

The tax itself wasn't the problem, it was making a pledge and breaking it and what that symbolized about unreliability on the economy.

[Tamika Jackson]

The shift between 1988-1992 may have something to do with Bush breaking his “Read my lips, no new taxes” pledge. A substantial number of voters there were probably pretty much single-issue tax cut voters.

Curious: how much evidence is there that the tax promise cost Bush votes in 1992? Okay yes, it was unpopular and True Conservatives hated him for this, but would these people instead have voted for tax raisers Clinton and Perot instead, or even stayed home and let them win?

If anything, the trash economy and culture war stuff would have been far more damaging. If anything, I feel like the early-90s recession is always forgotten when discussing 1992 and the tax pledge is always overemphasized.

Unless I am underestimating the level of fanaticism over a comparatively modest tax increase that somehow managed to overshadow literally everything else?

You’re probably right on the national scale, and I have no hard evidence for my claim. It’s just that conservatism in NH has probably tended to be the most fiscally-focussed of anywhere in the US.

As someone who has lived in NH for a decent length, you are correct. It tends to trend libertarian as well which doesn't quite mesh with a lot of the Republican social agenda...

[kph14]

New England voters simply were and are mostly socially liberal. Pro-choice and with a strong distaste for evangelical politics. Just look at Romney's performance there. The Republican party left those Yankee values behind by doubling down on midwestern and southern evangelicals

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Because a lot of those Southern NH suburbs are filled with former Massachusetts residents who moved to fleet the increasingly high tax rates.

TAXACHUSETTS

I would think that New Hampshire was the state where the broken tax pledge had the greatest effect on voters. Of course it's impossible to actually find out though.

[Tamika Jackson]

Because a lot of those Southern NH suburbs are filled with former Massachusetts residents who moved to fleet the increasingly high tax rates.

TAXACHUSETTS

I would think that New Hampshire was the state where the broken tax pledge had the greatest effect on voters. Of course it's impossible to actually find out though.

That would be a good study. What's interesting is that some ex-MA residents are trying to add taxes in NH to make it a "better MA"...

[Agonized-Statism]

I always thought it was purely cultural. The GOP went harder and faster on Southernization which culminated in the nomination the most outwardly Evangelical and stereotypically Southern nominee in recent memory- George W. Bush- while the Democrats didn't really nominate anyone like that after Bill Clinton. I don't really count Gore because he didn't play the part like Bush did. That Southern, Christian element was alienating to the state's libertarians and business conservatives.