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Welcome to the New Hampshire episode of Beyond the Polls. We'll hear from Dante Scala, the New Hampshire expert of experts, about what to expect in that state's all-important primary. Plus, my weekly rant and a new ad of the week. Let's dive in.
Well, this week's rant is going to be less ranty and more professorial because I'm going to try and walk you through what happened in Iowa and why I think it happened. So, first of all, we know from the overall results that Donald Trump won in a landslide. You know, he got over 50% of the vote. Nobody else got within 30 points of him. This is pretty much the definition of a landslide.
What's also interesting, though, is the breakdowns of the electorate, that education is something that people talk about. Trump won 67 percent of the vote among people who had some college, which either means you're a college dropout or it means that you got a two year degree or less.
And he won only 37% among people who are college graduates or have a postgraduate degree. Those groups were almost identically split, which is why he ended up with 51-52%. What does that mean? It means that Trump remains a candidate who does not engender as much loyalty among people with college degrees. That also means that he is at risk.
of losing some of these people. That pretty much if you vote in a Republican primary or caucus and you don't have a four-year college degree, you are not only likely to be a Trump loyalist, but you're likely to be a Trump vote regardless of whether you opposed him or not. But that's not the case for the person who has a college degree or more. Going forward, that's the sort of thing that gives Nikki Haley hope.
It gives Nikki Haley hope because in a caucus like Iowa, the sort of person who turns up is going to be hyper-partisan. And the sort of person who's a hyper-partisan in the Republican Party these days is likely to be, not like it was in the old days, the local business person who would come in and support a somewhat conservative candidate, but is likely to be somebody who...
doesn't have a college degree and is strongly supportive of Trump. So primaries overall will be better for Haley and for DeSantis if he's still in the race by the time we get to South Carolina.
But what's interesting is that among the people who didn't vote for Trump, Haley and DeSantis split the vote. Now, again, that's likely to be partly a result of the caucus, which is the sort of person who does show up even if they have a college degree, is likely to be the harder core conservative. In fact, 52% of the caucus were very conservative. That's a record high. Even for Iowa, it's much higher than it will be.
in southern states and will be astronomically higher than it will be in New Hampshire. This played to DeSantis's benefit across the board as I'll show when we get to the discussion on ideology.
But it still is not a huge overall margin. And it could very well be that some of those sort of people who voted for DeSantis in Iowa won't vote for him because he's not really competing there in New Hampshire. Will they go for Haley? That's the $64,000 question. And Dante and I discussed this in our...
interview later on the podcast. Also notable is party break, that Republicans were 82% of the caucus and Trump carried those with 54%. DeSantis beat Haley 24 to 15 here.
And that shows that the sort of person who doesn't like Trump or isn't sold on Trump, who is a Republican, gravitates more to a conservative person than a moderate person. But among independents, it was reversed. Trump still won the group with 42%, but Haley crushed DeSantis among this group, 34 to 8%.
Now, this group was only 18 percent of the caucus turnout. They will be higher in every primary state. It'll be much, much higher in a place like New Hampshire. So, again, that bodes well for Haley going forward. But there's still the underlying problem of you can't win a party nomination if you barely have support among the party. And that's the challenge going forward for Haley.
The ideology break shows that Trump won 61% of very conservatives. DeSantis got 26, Haley got only five. There were counties where she finished behind Vivek Ramaswamy in rural evangelical areas.
Again, this group will be smaller, almost very small in New Hampshire, but much larger in New Hampshire. It's smaller than this in most of the other states on Super Tuesday. She can't win a nomination if she gets 5% of this group. She has to get it up.
somewhat conservatives have been historically the deciders. They're the winners of the Republican Party. This is the group that people who want to unseat Trump really needed to go after. One of DeSantis' big problems, I think, is that he targeted the very conservative in his issues and his rhetoric.
And he couldn't dislodge them from Trump. Instead, he's going after the somewhat conservatives who aren't as intense about their ideology and tend to value other issues or other temperamental questions. On this group, Trump still won them with 47%, but Haley beat DeSantis 25 to 18. This shows why DeSantis didn't break through because Haley made the sale with these people. But it also shows why
Haley's weakness, which is she hasn't knocked out DeSantis or peeled away enough people from Trump. Again, it's hard to break through when you're only getting 15% of the vote in the party that you want to be the nominee of. Then you've got Haley winning 63% among moderates and liberals. They were only 11% of the caucus, which was a record low.
That could very well have been driven by turnout and by the weather. You know, when it's minus 25 or 35 degree wind chill and you're not a partisan, you may not want to spend three hours driving.
sitting around like you do in a caucus. But it will be much higher in New Hampshire. It will be higher in all the other primary states. That's her key, you know, is continuing to get that 63, maybe 70 percent of the vote there. But she has to increase her share of the vote among both very and somewhat conservatives to have a chance. Ron DeSantis simply has no chance.
unless he goes nuclear on Donald Trump. He needs to get Trump's numbers among both sets of conservatives down and transferred to him, and he needs to do it pronto, or else he is just going to be somebody who's going to end up on the campaign dump heap in history. Evangelical voters is another indicative question. Trump got pretty much the same vote among evangelical voters and non-evangelical voters.
But again, it was mirror image of each other. If you're an evangelical Christian, you backed DeSantis 2713. If you weren't, you backed Haley 2713. That's going to be good for Haley in places like New Hampshire or places outside of the South and the rural Midwest. But the problem for her is a lot of those southern and rural Midwestern states vote early.
Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina. Virginia is one that's split more between evangelicals and non-evangelicals. If she's only getting 13% among a group that is going to be somewhere between 40 and 65% of the electorate, she's not going to win these southern states. And if she doesn't win these southern states,
or at least come close, she really, again, has no chance for the nomination. She has to get her share of the vote up among evangelicals. And that means she has to do something that will appeal to them. Now, again, she's not going to do that before New Hampshire, because New Hampshire is among the most non-evangelical state in the union. Even among Republicans, that share will be low.
But when she goes south, when she goes to her native state of South Carolina and thereafter, she has to get that share of the vote up into the 30-35% range to have a shot. So what Iowa told us is that Donald Trump is incredibly strong, that Ron DeSantis' campaign has done little to nothing to dent his standing among conservatives, and that Nikki Haley has competed and broken out biologically.
By the way, that the person who breaks out normally does, going after the underserved constituency, becoming their champion. But the problem that person always has is the very focus that they put on serving the underserved constituency limits their appeal to the majority constituencies.
If Nikki Haley can solve that problem between now and the South Carolina primary, then she's got a chance. But if she doesn't, she's likely to be another flash in the pan, another Rick Santorum, another Mike Huckabee, another John McCain. Now, John McCain ended up moving to the right and becoming the nominee eight years later. And that's what Nikki, maybe that's what Nikki Haley does, is maintain support among moderates, move to the right, and succeed Trump in 2028.
But for 2024, Iowa showed why Donald Trump is the overriding favorite for the nomination, why DeSantis and why Haley finished roughly in a tie, and why both of them are in a world of hurt as the race goes on.
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Well, out of the cold of Iowa into the cold of New Hampshire, the Republican candidates are descending on the Granite State for the first in the nation primary. And here to tell us everything that we need to know about the New Hampshire primary is Mr. Granite Prof. himself, Dante Scala, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire and the co-author with me of the book Four Faces of the Republican Party. Dante, welcome back to Beyond the Polls. Thank you, Henry.
Well, we just had a race in New Hampshire, or at least there was a race, but one person seemed to have a much higher pedestal getting his medal than others. What, if anything, does Trump's resounding victory in the Hawkeye State mean for New Hampshire? Well, first, you know, lack of momentum for Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis.
coming into New Hampshire is the most immediate thing. And I think you've got, you know, you can see the conventional wisdom just congealing
around the idea that Trump is inevitable. And I think there was hope among the media that that wasn't the case, but Iowa quickly dispelled that. They were calling it before the caucuses were even done within the first hour of coverage. And so Haley, I think, was hoping for
for this surprise to be able to say to New Hampshire and to the media, hey, you underestimated me. I've got something going on here that's a surprise. Instead, she kind of slouched into the state in a comfortable second place, but without that
Gary Hart moment, right, where she was able to frame the race in New Hampshire cleanly as it's me versus Trump. And even though Ron DeSantis really doesn't have much going on here, and he's probably going to wind up with less than 10% of the vote, that clean narrative moment
wasn't Haley's to be had because she finished in third place. As someone mentioned on Twitter, her concession speech, which came last of all, sounded a bit like Joe Lieberman's
Back in 2004, when he claimed that he had finished, I believe the phrase was, a three-way tie for third in New Hampshire, which he described with great gusto. And he was out soon after. So that's one thing. The other thing to watch, I think, is how poorly...
Haley did among conservatives in Iowa, even the somewhat conservatives whom you and I talked about so much in our book. She did very well among moderates who are rather rare to be found in Iowa, like one out of 10, according to the entrance polls. But among conservatives, she did quite poorly.
And that has ramifications even in a more moderate state like New Hampshire. Yeah, I mean, one of the things I noticed in her ad, which she's got up, which is we will hear on this program, is that.
She's using the word conservative, and I don't know that she's used the word conservative. She doesn't highlight it. It's not like Nikki Haley, the conservative choice, blah, blah, blah. But she uses the word for the first time, I think. And it'd be interesting to see whether or not she can do that, excite the moderates, but be conservative enough among the somewhat conservatives to
to get a larger share of the vote than of that than she did in Iowa. What do you think about her ability to pull that little bit of trickery off? I think the level of difficulty is high. I mean, what we've seen pre-Iowa was a lot of stability among conservative voters.
New Hampshire Republicans. And again, they're a majority of the vote here. I mean, probably there's going to be like a 60-40 split in New Hampshire. 60% conservative, 40% moderate or liberal. Now, that's a lot of moderates, but it's not a majority. So, prior, there was a lot of stability where Trump was dominating among New Hampshire conservatives.
uh... and so now use at the scenario where haley comes into new hampshire she doesn't get that burned a media hit uh... that she's a candidate with momentum she doesn't get the free media hit that comes with doing a debate because there's not going to be a debate in new hampshire uh... for the first time since i don't know when uh... there's not going to be that debate with just a few days prior
How do you drive a message in that last week between Iowa and New Hampshire? It's all going to be, a lot of it's going to be earned media, trying to do a lot of town hall meetings, but the paid media at this point, it's a blizzard up here.
And it's a blizzard of conflicting messages coming from campaigns and super PACs and so forth. And it's a mess. I mean, my mailbox is filled with mailers. And I love that. But I can imagine a lot of voters just tossing mail.
you know, they're going to read half a dozen mail pieces in a given day. I mean, that's, it's tough to drive the message and it's tough to drive two messages, right? You're trying to drive a message. If you're Haley to those moderates, those never Trumpers, those democratic leaning independence, and then, which is more of an anti-Trump, but then you're trying to drive a message to conservatives saying, Hey, I'm one of you.
The problem is those New Hampshire conservatives so far, they seem quite comfortable with Trump. They're not the types who are going to put a nine-foot statue of Donald Trump on their front lawn, but they're comfortable with Trump. They're going to need some push to move off of him, and there's a precious few days to make that happen.
Yeah, so you said 60-40, conservative, moderate. So I just created some numbers out of whole cloth, and I want to run those by you and then tell you what the math was. Do you think it's plausible that it's a 65-30 split in favor of Trump versus Haley among conservatives? Yeah, that's certainly plausible, and in fact...
I think Haley getting 30 would be, at this point, would look pretty good because so far, right, she's been in New Hampshire in pre-Iowa polls. She's been hitting somewhere between 20 to 25. And in fact, the Suffolk poll today, which was the first one we've seen
since Iowa had her at just 18. Now, again, subsamples being what they are, there's a considerable amount of margin there, but that's plausible. Okay, and then on the moderate side, Haley 70, Trump 25.
That would be, I think, a number that she has to hit in order to reach up into, you know, beyond the 30s into somewhere between 40 to 45 percent of the total vote. Yeah, something along those lines, I would say.
sounds, that would be a very good night for Nikki Haley. Okay. So these estimates are plausible but optimistic for Haley? I'd say, yeah. I mean, I think they're on the upside for Haley among both factions, among moderates and among conservatives. I mean, that's probably about as good as it gets. She loses to Trump on these numbers 49 to 46.
Yep. That sounds about right, because we've got to keep in mind, right on Trump's side of the ledger, you've got, you know, Ramaswamy, who, you know, wasn't getting that much here, but, you know, even 5% of the vote, I mean, that's largely going to go to Trump.
It really would have helped if Ron just would have really helped Haley if Ron DeSantis were doing a little bit better. But he's in single digits and he's not investing in the state. I saw a tweet from Ad Impact today that said there's zero, zero dollars in support of DeSantis going forward over the next several days. He's not getting a debate.
He's not getting paid advertising, at least on television. So what's going to move DeSantis up to, you know, if DeSantis were getting 10 to 15, I would think a lot of that would be coming out of Trump's vote, not out of Haley. So that's the dilemma. I mean, Haley could, but I would say, you know, 49-46 probably is enough to
that at 8.01, when polls close in New Hampshire Tuesday night, for, say, Jake Tapper to come on and say, breaking news, hold everything, exit polls show it's too close to call in New Hampshire.
If I were Nikki Haley, I would get out there right away and give my rendition of Bill Clinton's comeback pitch speech and claim victory, even if it turns out that I fall, say, three, four percentage points short. Yeah, my thought going into our discussion today was that Haley's got to
Obviously, if she wins, that's what she wants. But she's got to be within five or six points of Trump, because if it's eight or nine or ten points loss in the state that everyone knows is much more favorable to her in the rest of the states, the story is the media is going to say close, but no cigar and no hope. He's inevitable. Yeah.
So running those same numbers, the crossover point for Haley to win comes somewhere around the 55-45 conservative versus moderate and liberal, which gets me to the next question. To get to that point, there aren't enough moderate and liberals who still declare themselves as Republican. You've got to get a massive turnout among the undeclared independent voter. Is there any indication that
that a lot of these people who would normally vote in the Democratic primary are going to say, you know, Joe Biden is my nominee. I really hate Donald Trump. I'm just this once going to crossover. Now, registered Democrats can't do that. Some of my listeners understand I'm talking about the sort of independent who might vote Democrat eight times out of 10 in her life, who's going to say, you know,
I'll vote for Biden again, but I really want to make sure Trump is out. And that means I'm going to hold my nose and vote for that icky Nikki. I think there's got to be. I haven't seen it yet. You know, Chris Christie has not endorsed Nikki Haley. And in fact, as you know, right, he has made some disparaging comments about Haley for weeks. And he made more on his way out the door.
So, you know, if you're a never-Trumper, especially a Democratic leaner who liked Christie precisely because he was pure, unadulterated, cane-sugar, never-Trumper, it's a bit of a stretch to vote for Haley. I mean, because there's all sorts of comments from Haley that suggest that
uh that she is a MAGA Republican you know when when Christie says hey you know Nikki Haley is just waiting to be tabbed to be Trump's VP there's enough quotes out there I mean she was a member of his administration uh after all to to suggest that there's some truth to it and in fact you
Trump knows this, and there's been an interesting, probably the most interesting piece of mail I've seen in New Hampshire so far is from Trump's super PAC. On one side, it says, Rhino Chris Christie is President Trump's biggest critic. On the other side, it says, President Trump's MAGA agenda is a hit with Nikki Haley.
And who's that directed toward, right? It's directed toward people who are thinking about Haley as a second choice. And now, obviously, I think it was produced before Christie got out. Maybe, maybe not. I suspect yes, but that's what Trump is trying to do. One of the things the campaign, and that came from the super PAC, is trying to do is tamp down
uh any kind of surge that drives up turnout beyond the x number they have in mind to deliver trump a victory you know the other thing though is again trump inevitability i really um i think that it's got to be close for all those people to show up if it we go into the weekend and it looks as if it's double digit margin
People are going to shrug and say, especially those Democratic gleaners, and say, I'll wait for the general. I never much liked Nikki Haley anyway. They only see her as a vehicle. But does the vehicle have wheels on it? You know, is the vehicle in drive? That's the question that remains to be seen, I think, over the next few days.
So I'm on the email list of both campaigns, of all these campaigns. And the Haley campaign sent an email announcing that she's going to be in Manchester and Hollis over the next two days. And two things. And, of course, Sununu will be with her at least at one of those, if not at both.
Manchester, largest city in the state, media center for MUR, whatever New Hampshire media there is, close drive for Boston. That makes sense. What struck me about Hollis was it's one of them. This is my research and you as Mr. Granite State can can let me know. It's one of the more educated towns in New
the state, which strikes me that once again, Haley knows where her votes are. Her votes are among college educated, well-to-do, moderate leaning voters, and that she's going to lean into that rather than jump into MAGA territory and try and proclaim fealty. What would we expect to see over the next few days from both Trump and Haley?
that would give us an indication of how they see the campaign is going? What would be, if Trump feels it's getting away from him, what do you think we'll see? If Haley feels that it's getting away from her, what would we see that would be different? Or do you think it's kind of like we've got six days, the playbooks are set, this is like the first 20 plays of the Bill Walsh era 49ers where he always ran the same thing, everyone knew what was coming and they couldn't stop it.
Yeah, I think of the two. Trump is probably more set in stone because he's doing these big rallies that you can only hold in so many places in the state, for one. Haley and Sununu, I could imagine doing much more barnstorming of the state in smaller town hall style events. So I suspect there's more flexibility there.
on their side. And yeah, Hollis is quite interesting. You go back and look at the 2016 results. I mean, that was an area, again, as you mentioned, prosperous, well-educated. That was an area where Trump almost lost to John Kasich. And, you know, again, Kasich did
15, 16% statewide in 2016, but he did do better in those more prosperous, well-educated areas. So it should be the case that if Haley's doing at least reasonably well, that she's carrying places like Hollis. And similarly, if you look in Rockingham County, adjoining Hillsborough County,
along the seacoast. That's where you find a lot of kind of moderate Republicans, you know, basically from the, like the Eastern half of the County places like Exeter, New Hampshire is another place to watch. But Henry, I do wonder, you know, I think I'm starting to get this sneaking suspicion that this whole, this,
Thought about the revolt of college educated Republicans against Trump might be a little overdrawn. And I wonder especially about the town of Bedford. Bedford, also in Hillsborough County, traditionally very Republican area area.
during the trump era has moved in general elections decisively toward the democrats joe biden carried bedford uh in 2020 uh and that was something you know a democratic nominee carrying bedford was unimaginable when i moved here 25 years ago but that said
I think that's a place to watch if it's the case, you know, we're seeing stories like in the New York Times, for instance, is our college educated Republicans reconciling themselves with Donald Trump.
If Trump carries Bedford, I think that's an indication of not just of a narrow victory for Trump, but a big victory that just quenches any doubt, extinguishes any doubt about who the nominee is going to be. Eight years ago, when I looked at the New Hampshire results,
That's when I realized that Donald Trump was for real and wasn't going anywhere because he was doing well, not just in working class towns like Seabrook, New Hampshire, but also in places like Bedford, that he was acceptable.
And that's what I wonder now. Like, is Haley... When I see that the best place Haley did in Iowa was Johnson County, home of the University of Iowa, as you pointed out in your political piece, when I see that, that makes me...
That's ominous to me. Like, I wonder if Haley... I mean, Haley's going to do a lot better than John Kasich did. But if she's winning places like Durham, New Hampshire, home of the University of New Hampshire, if she's winning in Hanover, home of Dartmouth College and its environs, if she's doing well in places like Keene, home of Keene State College, but she's losing places like Bedford, well...
That tells you all you need to know, because that's where those somewhat conservatives are, the suburbs. And that is interesting, not perhaps just for the primary, but perhaps for the general as well. Our college-educated voters reconsidering Donald Trump in the wake of four years of Joe Biden, that's something that might be on the table after New Hampshire.
When I was looking at the state, Pace had carried Hanover and those four towns on the border with Vermont. He did very well in that ring of towns. Chuck Morse beat Don Bolduc in that ring of towns on the East Coast, Portsmouth, Bedford, and so forth. When I was looking at it, I was thinking...
But Haley's, you know, she has to carry those areas big, you know, not five points. She has to carry them 10, 15, 20 points. Get it. You know, that's where the crossover is going to be. The person who voted Republican for Mitt Romney and voted Joe Biden and just says to heck with it and is a moderate and may not even vote in primaries anymore. That's where she needs the big turnout.
But it's the educated suburbs between Manchester and Nashua, you know, Londonderry, Amherst. You know, these are the areas that Bolduc did well in, Trump did well in a few years ago. But demographically, if she can't carry those, she can't carry the state because she's going to get pasted in the less educated areas. Yeah. Keep a special eye, Henry, I think on the western half of London.
Rockingham County, which includes some kind of well-populated areas, more kind of mass border areas, but also kind of these small towns that have become exurbs. They're fast-growing and so forth, and they tend to be kind of Trumpy sorts of areas. Rockingham County is where
Caroline Levitt, who was to me the most interesting New Hampshire politician in 2022, who was a Rockingham County native, joined Trump's press shop on
very young, 20-something Republican, then ran for the Republican nomination in the first congressional district, beat Matt Mowers, a former Chris Christie aide who had been the nominee in 2020. Why did she win? Because she was the true MAGA candidate. And that, to me, suggests 2022, again, Chris Sununu,
who is, you know, Nikki Haley's BFF up here. He has been always consistently popular among Republicans as a governor. But there's a clear split when Sununu was talking about running for president.
There were a lot of New Hampshire conservatives, and it showed up in polling, who said basically, hey, you know what, Chris? Thanks, but no thanks. We like you as governor. We're not interested in you as a presidential candidate. So I would really watch, you know, I mean, again, Rockingham County is Sununu's home, but can Sununu really clinch a deal with New Hampshire conservatives?
I think Sununu's, I suspect he's done as much as he can in getting those moderates on board. But can he cut any ice with conservatives? I think that's an altogether different question. Well, Dante, will you be live tweeting or analyzing on primary night? And if so, where can my listeners find you? I will be...
doing a couple things over the next few days. On primary night, I will be on New Hampshire Public Radio, which you can listen to live on the internets. So I'll be interspersed with their national coverage from New Hampshire Public Radio. In addition, I have a piece coming out with Larry Sabato's Center for Politics, which covers some...
towns and cities to watch in new hampshire uh and i've also got something dropping on politico uh on nicki haley and uh moderates and conservatives in new hampshire in the next day or two
Well, if it's the week before the New Hampshire primary, it's the week where you can't get enough of Dante Scala. Dante, thank you for joining me again, and stay well and stay hydrated, my friend. These are a busy seven days for you. Thank you, sir. Good to see you.
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Chumba Casino has been delivering thrills for over a decade. So claim your free welcome bonus now and live the Chumba life. Visit ChumbaCasino.com. I foreshadowed this in my discussion with Dante. The ad of the week this week is the ad that Nikki Haley's campaign just put up in New Hampshire. I think you'll have an idea why I'm selecting it when you listen.
The two most disliked politicians in America, Trump and Biden, both are consumed by chaos, negativity, and grievances of the past. The better choice for a better America, Nikki Haley. I have a different style and approach. I'll fix our economy, close our border, and strengthen the cause of freedom. We need a new generation of conservative leadership to get it done. I'm Nikki Haley, and I approve this message.
So what's Nikki Haley's challenge? Nikki Haley's challenge, as we talked about, is how to gin up turnout among moderates and independents while also beginning to appeal to conservatives. So what does this ad do? It starts with the thing that would motivate people who are not already Republicans, who are the sort of people who are on the fence. It's basically you all don't want a Biden-Trump rematch.
And they pose that question directly and they do it both with pictures of Biden and Trump and they do it with visuals. When you hear the words, you have similar words on the screen so that people get that mnemonic device that I like, both the voice and the eyes, the ears and the eyes working in tandem to get the message. So 13 seconds.
of the 30-second ad is spent on setting the case, which is you don't want this chaos, these grievances, and so forth. And by putting it with Trump and Biden, you minimize the downside with the Trump voters, is that what you're talking about is you're criticizing Trump.
But you're not going all in on Trump because it's Trump and Biden. It's clear, but it's not in-your-face offensive that would turn off a Trump-favorable moderate conservative. And the last 17 seconds of the ad is pro-Nikki Haley. And one of the things I like about it, one, the pictures are active. She's talking with people. She's giving speeches. She's immersed with people. It's a good sign of somebody who visually...
is active and being active is what people associate with president. This is not the 19th century where people might want a passive president and let Congress move on. They want an active president and the pictures tell that story. What do the words do? When she's talking about the issues, she's talking about things that appeal to both conservatives and moderates.
She's not drawing a divisive line. When she says fix our border, she's not saying build that wall or deport them. The fact is immigration and fixing the border is a strong concern among moderates and among conservatives. Fixing our economy, strong concern among moderates and
And then as I noted in my interview with Dante, she just says when it's time for a new generation of instead of leadership, she says a new generation of conservative leadership. It's a little subtle, maybe too subtle, but it's the first time I believe she's used the word conservative in an ad to describe herself.
And then you've got the final, when she says, I approve this message, you've got her name and it's got election date. So it tells people when to vote again. You wouldn't put that up there unless you're trying to drive turnout.
because the sort of people who always vote know when election day is. The sort of person who you're trying to drive to the polls, who is an infrequent Republican Party voter, you're reminding them the time is now. Get out and vote. Now, New Hampshire has no early voting to speak of, so there's not like a
bunch of mail ballots sitting there. People can decide and vote, and 98% or so of the vote will be cast in the booths in person on Election Day, and that's why saying when the election is is something that's important. This ad isn't perfect. No ad is perfect, but she's focusing on the issue she needs to and the audience she needs to have a chance of beating Trump or coming very close, and that's why it's this week's Ad of the Week.
That's it for this week. Next week, I'll be joined by Hugh Hewitt, who will break down where the GOP race stands, if there is any. Until then, let's reach for the stars together as we journey beyond the polls.
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