Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire in 2016, but it was a very, very close race. In the end, she beat Donald Trump by fewer than 3,000 votes.
New Hampshire has only four electoral votes, but if this race is close and both campaigns are trying to build out scenarios to get them to 270, it could be decisive. It might also be instructive. If Joe Biden and Trump are neck-and-neck as the count takes shape, that could be a promising sign for the President as the campaigns begin to eyeball the Midwestern swing states.
That’s in part because the polls suggest that Biden is the favorite here. Trump’s team has projected confidence, pointing to their ground game.
The state’s most famous newspaper, the New Hampshire Union Leader, with its conservative editorial board, endorsed Biden this time around, after effectively ducking the question in 2016 by throwing its support to Libertarian Gary Johnson.
There’s little evidence that newspaper endorsements in big races like this move many voters, but in battleground states they are often a reflection of where the electorate is – or, on Election Day, where it’s going.
