Donald Trump and Nikki Haley were both getting in from of voters tonight making their final pitch before Granite Staters head to the polls on Tuesday. Election workers will be ready for them.
The ballots are stocked, the volunteers in place. It’s crunch time for New Hampshire and Secretary of State David Scanlan says they’re locked in and ready to go.
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“Right now it feels like the calm before the storm,” Scanlan said Monday.
Polls open Tuesday morning and the results will give a country a sense of who will be vying for the White House come Nov. 5. The results are expected by 11 p.m. Tuesday.
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The state of the Democrats...
President Joe Biden won’t be on the ballot.
“The aggressive write-in campaign that's taking place to write his name in. How much enthusiasm has that created? Will the voters respond to that by turning out?” Scanlan said.
Biden turned away from New Hampshire after a failed attempt in 2023 to move South Carolina higher in the primary process.
“The polls suggest he'll have an easy win, even with a write-in campaign,” Political analyst Scott Spradling said.
But his absence has allowed challengers to claim a portion of the spotlight.
“Dean Phillips if he has a better than average finish he could start a conversation with Democrats throughout the country about where they're at,” Spradling added.
On the GOP side...
Polling shows Donald Trump still firmly in first place, while Nikki Haley is trying to prove that the nomination isn’t a foregone conclusion.
“Nikki Haley can have a close second place but it's gotta be low single digits,” Spradling said.
More on write-in candidates and write-in votes
About half of New Hampshire uses machines to count votes, while the other half counts by hand. Scanlan says the write-in votes for Biden will all need to be hand counted, so that will come easy for some areas, while others will have a challenge.
There is also a possibility that voters who believed they were undeclared may show up and find that they are actually registered with one of the big parties. State officials say if that happens, it’s possible Haley may get a sizable number of write-in votes for Democrats. It’s also possible Democrats may write-in other big names who did not file.
Also underway is an effort to have voters write in “ceasefire” as a form of protest vote. Scanlan said he expects officials will keep track of those votes. More obscure write-in options can be counted under a category called “scatter.”
