The evolution of Black Friday: A conversation with N.H. Retail Association President Curtis Picard

The day after Thanksgiving has long been a huge shopping day, especially here in sales tax-free New Hampshire. But is Black Friday still the shopping extravaganza it was? On this episode of “The State We’re In,” host Melanie Plenda talks with Curtis Picard, president and CEO of the N.H. Retail Association, about the Black Friday phenomenon. 

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

Black Friday, before the advent of online shopping, was crazy — especially here in New Hampshire. For our audience who may not remember, what was it like? 

Curtis Picard:

It's actually such a fascinating history because it goes back quite a few decades. The United States of America didn't have a solid Thanksgiving day on the calendar until the late 1930s-1940s, and it was only under FDR, when he finally heard from retailers like Macy's saying that they needed a solid date for when Thanksgiving should fall. So that really helped cement where we are today, and over the decades it certainly has evolved quite a bit.

I'm part of that generation from the 1980s where shopping malls were everything for retail — the midnight doorbusters and getting that large TV. But it certainly has evolved to where we are now in 2024.

Melanie Plenda:

How has online shopping changed the day? 

Curtis Picard:

I've been involved in retail associations for almost 20 years now. I've seen quite a bit in my tenure. We've seen the evolution just in my time from stores opening at midnight and having these great deals from midnight to 2 a.m. They’ve gotten a lot more savvy about the marketing. They've also expanded the window for when these deals are available to consumers — and that's really what they've always done, which is responding to consumer needs and wants.

So consumers have said that they want greater access to deals. They have more ability at their fingertips now to be able to shop for things online and compare prices. The consumer has always been in the driver's seat, but they're more in the driver's seat than they ever have been.

Melanie Plenda:

As a state without a sales tax, does that offer New Hampshire stores an advantage? Is it an incentive for others to come to the state? 

Curtis Picard:

What really helped evolve that phenomenon was the COVID pandemic. Going into the 2020 holiday shopping season, we worked with  government officials and tried to figure out the best way we could do holiday shopping that was safe for people. What we eventually were able to communicate to folks was you need to spread out the holiday shopping season. We don't want you to come on Black Friday, but we want to expand that window. Consumers really responded to it. So I think, since 2020, retailers have continued to expand that window of holiday shopping, and consumers have now learned that it's OK to do some of your holiday shopping in October or early November. You don't have to wait for Black Friday to do it. 

Melanie Plenda:

So, conversely, has it become a reason for New Hampshire residents to shop from home?

Curtis Picard:

I think the way we think of it now is — and this is also part of the pandemic as well — it wasn't just the large retailers or just the online retailers. Even small retailers had to learn how to better embrace e-commerce and what we call omni-channel. You want to meet your customers however they want to be served, whether that's in person in a brick-and-mortar store, whether they want to be able to online, order online, or pick up at the store, or just shop from home and have things delivered to their house. The COVID pandemic enabled a lot of smaller retailers to offer more of those services. So now, whether you're big or small, chances are, if you want to be successful in retail, you have to respond to customers in that way.

Melanie Plenda:

These must mirror retail trends in general. Can you tell us more about that, and how is the industry adapting? 

Curtis Picard:

That's always one of those things where you can take a look back after the holiday season and see how things do and how much of a predictor it was of the overall economy. But that really changed during the pandemic as well.

When it came to holiday shopping, we started to see a trend, even before the pandemic, of people appreciating their smaller, locally owned stores more. Small Business Saturday has been a thing for a long time, but I think our association and others have always emphasized that you need to support your small local retailers 365 days a year, not just one day out of the year. We had seen that trend before the pandemic, but the pandemic really emphasized it because people saw their locally owned stores really struggling, trying to navigate that pandemic, and I think people really embraced them. That's one of the trends that we've continued to see evolve. 

I also think that retailers benefited in those years of the pandemic because there was a lot of disposable income that was no longer used for eating out, going to concerts, doing experience type of things. People were trending back towards wanting to buy physical things. I think that's shifting back now, now that we're four years past the pandemic — people are feeling more comfortable going to concerts or lavish dinners, travel. It's a competition for dollars as well.

But then after the holiday season, we always take a look at where people actually spend their money. High-ticket items? Furnishings? Electronics? Brand-name luxury goods, or was it more the department stores or the bargain chains? But that's always a look back. It's hard to always predict how things are going to go. 

Melanie Plenda:

What about shopping trends outside the holiday season? How are stores generally adapting to balancing e-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores? 

Curtis Picard:

Every retailer is working on mastering that. Some certainly do it better than others, but there's always been the evolution of retail. You're always responding to customer needs and wants. We can say that customers are always fickle, but you have to continue to earn their business, and that never gets easier.

So whether you're a popular New Hampshire-based retailer that's been around for decades, you still have to work at it. The business can't sit back on their laurels and take it for granted. You have to be responsive to customers. You have to keep your eye on different trends and wants and changing interests in the products you're offering. You’ve got to make sure your pricing is competitive, and that's certainly been a challenge more recently, with the inflationary pressures that everybody's been facing.

Melanie Plenda:

What are some creative solutions you’ve heard about to draw customers in?

Curtis Picard:

Retailers are like the best marketers out there. We talked in the beginning about Thanksgiving and the role that Macy's plays, even today. I don't know about you, but in my family, we still sit down on Thanksgiving Day and watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, because it's such an icon. Retailers do a really good job, marketing-wise, and they continue to try to appeal to customers and earn their business.

We talked about how now they've expanded the window of the holiday shopping season. We've seen the rise of things like gift cards over the last 10 or 12 years. Gift cards are really great giving tools, but the benefit for retailers is if you give a gift card during the holiday season to somebody, the hope is they're going to come back in January and spend that gift card when that's usually a slower time of year. So those are all marketing tools at retailers' disposal that they try to use, and a lot of them are quite successful.

Melanie Plenda:

Beyond planning our shopping, the success of Black Friday — whether it’s one day or two weeks — has a bigger impact on the retail industry in our state. For our audience, can you talk about that impact and what it means for residents?

Curtis Picard:

A lot of that is tradition. We all look forward to Black Friday. Certainly, media outlets reach out wanting to talk about Black Friday, how it's going and what the crowds are like. But we have that window between Thanksgiving and Christmas — Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, which is the Monday following Thanksgiving, and then you have those other weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

A lot of people don't realize that the full weekend before Christmas is often as busy, if not busier, than Black Friday. So we look at all of those things. The urban myth is that the term Black Friday refers to when retailers turn from unprofitable to profitable. You go from the red side of the ledger to the black side. I'm not sure that's really true. I've also heard stories that it goes back to the 1960s in Philadelphia, and it was just in reference to how chaotic the shopping day became. I don't know what the true story is, but it is within our shared history here in the United States, and it has become quite a tradition that carries on to this day.

Melanie Plenda:

When you look ahead five or even 10 years, what do you think Black Friday will look like? 

Curtis Picard:

That's a good question. I don't want to say it's not going to have an impact, because it's always going to have an impact. It's worked into our lexicon here in the United States and in New Hampshire, but I think what we've seen, customers will continue to be in the driver's seat. I think retailers and consumers have adapted to a longer shopping period, and the ability to get what you want and what you need quicker will continue to develop as well. You know, already there's online retailers that can deliver goods to you the same day. I think you're going to continue to see that expand. Black Friday is not going to go away, it's just going to continue to evolve.

Melanie Plenda:

That was so interesting. Thank you Curtis Picard, president and CEO of the New Hampshire Retail Association, for sharing your thoughts. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

New Hampshire community TV stations scramble for funding as revenue source continues to shrink

Cable franchise fees, which support the stations, have dwindled for years in an era of cord-cutting

By: Patrick Adrian, Granite State News Collaborative

Public access television stations across New Hampshire face growing uncertainty as their funding declines, forcing stations to seek new sources of revenue to support community television. 

“The federal government should be saying that this service is essential for communities,” says Jason Cote, executive director of Manchester Public Television. (Dan Splaine Photography)

Funding for the television stations derives from franchise fees, a charge that appears on a customer’s cable bill. They are an annual payment by a cable company to a municipality in exchange for the use of public property to operate its cable lines. 

But the ongoing preference by viewers to “cut the cord” and instead opt for streaming services, as well as a growing customer preference for more customized and cost-effective television options, have led to a dramatic decrease in cable subscriptions nationwide, including in the Granite State.

Nashua Community Television, a city-owned station with four public-access channels, is currently working with the city's Board of Aldermen to cover “a sizable deficit” this fiscal year, said Pete Johnson, NCTV’s education channel access director. 

The station, which has a $600,000 operating budget, received $383,000 in franchise fee revenues this year — down nearly 7% from last fiscal year. 

“We took a pretty substantial hit this year,” Johnson said. “We knew this downturn was coming (but now) we’ve blown through our reserves.” 

For several years, the station supplemented its revenue with money from a surplus reserve, Johnson said. But that reserve is now depleted. 

Since 2017, cable subscriptions in the U.S. have declined annually by nearly 5% — from 96 million subscriptions to 68 million in 2024, according to IBISWorld, a global research firm. Comcast, the largest cable TV provider in New Hampshire and second-largest in the U.S., reported a nationwide loss of over 1.8 million cable subscribers between March 2023 and August 2024. 

A federal rule that only allows a fee charged to cable services, not to broadband providers, to support community television “hasn’t caught up to the industry,” Nick Lavallee, executive director of Merrimack TV, told the Town Council at a recent meeting. (Dan Splaine Photography)

In Nashua, the revenues from franchise fees have declined 21% since 2017, when the station received $483,000. 

The problem, said community television advocates, lies in the federal government’s funding rules for public access stations, which are 40 years old and outdated. 

“Consumers are switching to other services (through broadband) that are not regulated the same way as cable,” said Mike Wassenaar, president of the Alliance for Community Media, a national trade organization. “The irony is that there is more and more video being watched today but less and less money going toward the public stations that produce local content.”
The funding conundrum

Franchise fees are governed under the Cable Communications Act of 1984, which sets a national policy for the regulation of cable television communications. 

Under federal law, municipalities are entitled to a maximum of 5% of a cable operator’s gross revenues derived from cable subscriptions and related services, such as pay-per-view orders. In New Hampshire, the local government and cable provider negotiate the percentage of this fee when initiating or renewing a franchise agreement. Municipalities may use these revenues for a variety of local purposes, including to fund public, education and government access, or PEG, channels. 

“There should be a related public benefit in exchange for allowing private companies to make money off of public property,” said Owen Provencher, director of Derry Community Access Media and president of the N.H. Coalition of Community Media, a group of nearly 40 public access outlets in the state. 

“There should be a related public benefit in exchange for allowing private companies to make money off of public property,” says Owen Provencher, director of Derry Community Access Media and president of the N.H. Coalition of Community Media, a group of nearly 40 public access outlets in the state. (Dan Splaine Photography)

But the federal rule allows a fee charged only to cable services, not to broadband providers. 

“The law hasn’t caught up to the industry,” Nick Lavallee, executive director of Merrimack TV, told the Town Council at a meeting Sept. 26. 

“One can purchase broadband and run streaming apps to access the same video content as cable television (without paying a franchise fee),” Wassenaar said. “It’s a problem across the country, and unless there’s a change in the federal law, this problem will still exist.” 

Community television advocates believe that federal law should expand the application of franchise fees to all companies that use public right-of-ways to deliver video content, including internet providers and streaming services. 

“The broadband and fiber optics lines are going over the same public right-of-ways as the cable one,” Provencher said in an interview.

Meanwhile, community television stations are already serving a large and growing viewership on internet-based platforms, particularly due to the ability to stream recorded programs, several station managers said. 

Jason Cote, executive director of Manchester Public Television, said a live government meeting might draw between 75 and 100 viewers, whereas the video recording of that meeting online will receive “hundreds of views.”

“I brought up 10 years ago that (internet providers) should be involved in funding public access stations,” Cote said. “The federal government should be saying that this service is essential for communities.” 

The COVID pandemic, in addition to accelerating the market shift toward video streaming, opened new opportunities for public access television to engage audiences. 

Manchester Public TV’s studios are located on Canal Street in downtown Manchester. (Dan Splaine Photography)

For example, Nashua Community TV began covering live school sporting events because the games were closed to the public, Johnson said. The station still provides live game coverage due to its popularity. 

“So we find ourselves busier than ever, because people have come to expect that kind of coverage,” Johnson said. “And those are things that we want to continue for the community.”

‘Not sustainable in the long term’

As revenues shrink, some stations are seeking support from their local governments. This includes requests for additional funding or proposals to raise the franchise fee rate. 

The Merrimack Town Council, at a meeting Sept. 26, discussed whether to include Merrimack TV in the town budget and fund it from local property taxes instead of franchise fees.

The station’s franchise fee revenue this year — $368,000 — is 7% lower than in 2021, Town Manager Paul Micali told the council. A recent study projected that the station may be operating at a deficit in three years, based on the rate of declining funds and estimated cost increases. 

At the meeting, Micali proposed that the council increase the franchise fee rate, from the current 3.75% of cable revenues to 5%, when the agreement is up for renewal in 2029. This increase would not resolve the problem, though it would provide a few additional years of sustainability, Micali said. 

Several councilors expressed concern about increasing the burden on cable subscribers for a station accessed by the broader community.

Among them was Thomas Koenig, who said, “I think that’s wrong. If we need to fund it, I think we (all) need to fund it.”

The council has not yet made a decision on the station’s funding. 

On the Seacoast, Portsmouth Public Media TV which operates PPMtv, announced in July that its channel may shut down operations after 14 years unless the city council renegotiates a 2009 agreement with the station to increase its funding. 

Under that agreement, the city retains $360,000 of the annual franchise fee it receives from Comcast — 5% of the company’s cable revenues — and PPMtv receives the remainder of the revenue. In prior years, the station’s share has averaged roughly between $120,000 and $130,000, said Executive Director Chad Cordner.

But in May, PPMtv learned that its funding share this year would be $86,000 — a 27% drop from 2023 — and that next year’s funding is projected to be a similar amount, Cordner said. The allotted funding is barely enough to pay Cordner’s full-time salary, $46,000, and the station’s two part-time employees, at $20,000 apiece, he said.

The Nashua ETV studio (Dan Splaine Photography)

“PPMtv is tremendously underfunded as compared to other stations,” Studio Operations Manager Jake Webb wrote in an online petition seeking community support. “A more equal split of this fee would allow PPMtv to continue to operate and even grow.”

The station’s Youtube channel has 14,000 subscribers, and its video library has received 4 million total views, Cordner said. 

The station is seeking between $50,000 and $100,000 in additional franchise fee revenues to cover equipment and programming costs, including media education workshops and internships, Cordner said.

Several city councilors, at a meeting Sept. 3, expressed reservations about increasing the station’s funding from a shrinking revenue source.

“Even if we gave PPMtv 100% of the franchise fee, that is not sustainable in the long term because that (revenue) will go down significantly, " Councilor Kate Cook said at the meeting. 

The city’s franchise fees also fund a government channel that streams municipal meetings, which has a budget of over $200,000 a year, Cook said. 

The council directed city staff on Sept. 3 to present recommendations at a future council meeting for ways to sustainably fund PPMtv. 

State solutions 

Despite a strong consensus in support of changing the federal law, several industry members said that is unlikely to happen. 

Congress would need to approve any amendments to the Cable Communications Act. The political divide in Washington already makes bipartisanship difficult, Wassenaar noted.

And many lawmakers would be reluctant to support a fee on Internet services, said Lauren-Glenn Davitian, public policy director at Center for Media & Democracy, a public media advocacy group based in Burlington, Vt. 

The Internet Tax Freedom Act, a federal law passed in 1998, prohibits state and local governments from imposing taxes directly on the internet or online activity, including taxes on email accounts or internet access. The law’s stated intent was to support the internet’s use as a commercial, educational and informational tool. 

Some states, including Vermont, Maine and Massachusetts, are taking steps to aid their public access stations through legislation or direct funding. Provencher said there is currently no legislation in New Hampshire pertaining to community television funding.

In February, the Maine Legislature passed LD 1967, a law that allows municipalities to charge a franchise fee to any video service provider that uses a public right-of-way, regardless of the technology employed. 

The law requires any provider of video, audio or digital entertainment that owns or operates facilities in the public right-of-way to have an agreement with the municipality, said Tony Vigue, a public media advocate in Maine. 

The bill’s stated intent is to ensure that all providers of video services, regardless of the platform, receive equal treatment in respect to franchising and regulating. 

“Just because the technology has changed, the town still owns a public right-of-way,” Vigue said. 

The law, which was not signed by the governor, went into effect in August. The Maine Municipal Association and Maine Connectivity Authority are still drafting a standard agreement form for towns and cities to use, Vigue said. 

Massachusetts lawmakers are considering legislation that would levy fees on streaming companies like Netflix and Roku to help fund community media. 

Nashua Community Television is currently working with the city's Board of Aldermen to cover “a sizable deficit” this fiscal year, says Pete Johnson, NCTV’s education channel access director. (Dan Splaine Photography)

Senate Bill 2771 proposes a 5% fee on digital streaming providers, based on a company’s gross annual revenue in the state. A portion of the fee would be distributed to municipalities to support their public access television programs. The bill, introduced last year, is still under review in the Massachusetts Senate. 

Vermont is considering a similar bill, S.181, which is currently under committee review in the House. That bill would also charge a 5% tax on a company’s statewide revenue. 

Though she would like to see a legislative plan, Davitian said she does not support a streaming tax, which would result in many consumers being charged more than once for the same use of a right-of-way, such as cable customers with add-on streaming channels. 

“There needs to be a tax on the infrastructure, not streaming (services),” Davitian said.

A separate bill, proposing a $15-per-pole attachment tax for each fiber or copper line attached to a utility pole, was abandoned by the House Ways and Means Committee in February. 

The bill received heavy opposition from various stakeholders, including local telephone companies, which said they wouldn’t be able to afford the cost, Davitian said. 

In June, the Vermont Legislature approved a one-time appropriation of $1 million in this year’s budget to help Vermont’s community television stations absorb the impact of declining franchise fees.

That money is intended to be a stopgap as legislators continue to seek a funding solution, Davitian said. “It was an interesting victory,” Davitian said. “We are happy to get the money, but we didn’t get to make a public policy.” 

The money will be distributed through the Vermont Access Network, an organization representing the state’s 24 public access media centers, which operate more than 80 local cable channels in the state. 

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

NH kept $4.8 million in child support from the state’s poorest families last year. Officials say there’s ‘support’ to change that, but no action so far

The state can hold child support to recoup its costs of providing cash assistance to needy families, including more than 13,000 Granite State families last year

By: Kelly Burch, Granite State News Collaborative

Last year, New Hampshire retained more than $4.8 million in child support from about 13,000 Granite State families who are receiving cash assistance from the state, or have received it in the past. 

Although withholding the money aligns with federal law, policy experts say retaining child support to cover state costs has a negative impact on families and makes it less likely that a parent will pay court-ordered child support.

In part because of those issues, half of states around the country — including Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts — have changed their laws to allow child support to “pass through” to families who are receiving benefits. 

Similar efforts have briefly been considered in New Hampshire, but never gained real traction, experts say. 

“There certainly is a lot of support behind having pass-through so the family is receiving [cash benefits] but also the child support that is court-ordered to be paid to the family,” said Karen Hebert, director of the state Division for Economic Stability, which oversees cash assistance and child support.

The lack of action has left New Hampshire’s most vulnerable families without access to money that could help them escape poverty. 

“We want to ensure we’re lifting people up and not constraining them to remain at low-income levels,” said Rebecca Woitkowski, child and family policy director at New Futures, a Granite State nonprofit advocating for improved health through policy changes. “The more we can build up a family, the better it will be for our state’s future.” 

Withholding money that could help cover basic needs

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) provides cash to the country’s lowest-income families. In New Hampshire, families may qualify for TANF if their income is at or below 60% of the federal poverty level, or $1,560 per month for a family of four. 

“TANF families are living at very low income levels. They likely have a number of burdens they’re trying to overcome…” Woitkowski said. “Families don’t want to live at TANF levels. It’s hard.”

To qualify for TANF, federal law requires families to cooperate with the government’s child support program, which helps facilitate court-ordered child support. The state assists a family in finding a non-custodial parent and obtaining child support, often from federal tax returns, said Diana Azevedo-McCaffrey, policy analyst with the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and co-author of a recent report on the issue of retained child support. 

“For these families — most of which are very low income, overwhelmingly led by women, disproportionately women of color — these child support payments make a huge difference for children, families, and parents, not only financially but in other ways as well,” she said.

And yet, “most of the time [the family doesn’t] receive those child support payments,” Azevedo-McCaffrey said. 

Instead, “the state splits [the child support] with the federal government to reimburse itself for the cash benefits provided to the family.”

In fiscal year 2024 (which ended June 30), New Hampshire retained a total of $4,837,163 in child support from families who have utilized TANF, according to data provided by the state Division for Economic Stability, which oversees both TANF and child support. 

That includes $3,526,501 retained from families currently getting TANF, and $1,310,662 from families that were formerly on TANF, but aren’t currently getting cash benefits. 

A similar policy affects child support paid by parents whose children are currently in or were formerly in foster care. In fiscal year 2024, New Hampshire retained $27,642 from those families, according to state data.

In total, the state retained child support from 13,420 New Hampshire families last year. On average, the court-ordered child support paid to these families is $222.89 per month from families currently on TANF, and $200.80 per month from families that were formerly on TANF, according to state data. 

That may seem like a small amount of money to some people, but for TANF families it can mean the difference between housing and homelessness, eating or going hungry, according to Woitkowski. 

“Any amount of money, at that point, is going to be impactful for that family to meet their basic needs,” she said. 

Two policy changes could make a difference

Research shows many benefits to families receiving child support, including more financial stability, lower risk of involvement with child protective services, and better outcomes for kids. 

In addition, noncustodial parents are more likely to pay their court-ordered child support if they know it is benefiting their children directly, rather than being retained by the state, research shows. 

“There’s not much incentive [to pay] for parents who are having child support kept by the government,” Azevedo-McCaffrey said. 

There’s also an emotional and social factor to child support that’s different from other types of financial support.

Child support is “often representative of family relationships and dynamics,” Azevedo-McCaffrey said. “These cost-recovery policies can be very harmful, not only in the sense that they’re depriving families of an income source … but they’re disrupting families and family dynamics and relationships.”

Because of this, states around the country are reconsidering the retention of child support, and are moving to change two policies. 

The first change is to enact legislation that would allow a certain amount of child support to “pass through” to families without being retained by the state. Twenty-five states, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, have adopted such policies. Massachusetts and Maine both allow $50 per month in child support to go directly to families even if they’re getting TANF; Vermont increased the pass-through amount to $100 this year. New Hampshire doesn’t allow any funds to pass through.

A second policy would alter the distribution model that states use to allocate child support funds, switching from the model outlined by a 1996 federal law to the model outlined by a 2005 law. The change “switches the payment order, essentially,” paying families their current and then past child support owed, before reimbursing the state for costs associated with TANF, Azevedo-McCaffrey said. 

Nationally, nine states, including Vermont, have made that change. New Hampshire still follows the 1996 law. 

‘A lot of support’ for change, but little action

Hebert, director of the state Division for Economic Stability, which oversees TANF and child support, says New Hampshire has considered changing its policies on retained child support twice within the 20 years that she’s been with the division, but the efforts haven’t led anywhere.

When the state provides assistance to individuals, it has a “vested interest” in covering its costs, Hebert said. At the same time, there’s a desire to get people the assistance they need. 

That’s why there’s no child-support requirement for individuals or families participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP): The state wants people who need food assistance to get it, Hebert said. 

Leveraging child support as a condition for SNAP is “just not something the state has ever really been interested in,” she added. And yet, the state continues to retain child support from families on TANF, which has a much lower income threshold than SNAP.

“There are lots of reasons we would want to support pass-through,” Hebert said, citing the national research about parents being more likely to pay child support when the money goes directly to their children.

Still, there’s been no change. One reason is that when the state collects child support for a family that has had TANF, it must give a portion of the proceeds to the federal government. 

Federal law allows states to pass through up to $200 a month in child support (depending on family size) without needing to reimburse the federal portion, Azevedo-McCaffrey said. Three states — Colorado, Michigan and Minnesota — combine several federal policy options in order to pass through all child support to families, despite the federal requirement, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report. 

Making similar changes in New Hampshire “is a state policy and finance decision for the legislature,” Hebert said. 

The other reason New Hampshire hasn’t changed is more mundane: computer and logistical challenges. 

“There’s a lot of maintenance to it in the system that we have,” Hebert said. 

That’s a prominent barrier around the nation, Azevedo-McCaffrey said. Updating the software that states use to calculate TANF and child support distributions is a huge undertaking.

"For some states, the biggest cost is computer reprogramming,” she said.

A bigger issue is also at play, she added: “Sadly, sometimes there is not a lot of political will to change policies that impact people living in poverty.”

Regardless of child support, TANF in NH is underutilized

Aside from issues around retaining child support, there’s widespread “under-enrollment” in TANF in New Hampshire, according to a report from the N.H. Fiscal Policy Institute. Because fewer families are participating in the program, the state has a balance of $74.4 million in unspent TANF funding from the federal government, the fiscal policy center found.

Each state has the power to set its own definition of a “needy family,” Hebert said, so New Hampshire has the power to raise the income that qualifies for TANF, potentially increasing the number of participating families. New Hampshire’s threshold for qualifying for TANF is already among the highest in the country, and greater than neighboring states, but “if the limit were increased, it is logical we could see an increase in utilization,” Hebert said.

The state also disregards certain income when calculating TANF eligibility, she noted. The state is currently running a pilot program to disregard 75 to 100 percent of new income, in order “to mitigate the cliff effect,” which occurs when people suddenly lose benefits after hitting a certain income threshold.  

Only 5,308 individuals participate in TANF at any given time in 2024, well below the 76,922 enrolled in SNAP or the 183,955 enrolled in Medicaid, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute. Both SNAP and Medicaid have significantly higher income allowances, so more people are eligible for those programs.

Participation in TANF declined about 34% between 2020 and 2024, said Jess Williams, policy analyst with the N.H. Fiscal Policy Institute. In part, that’s positive: Families overall are more financially stable due to the state’s low unemployment, and the impact of pandemic-related financial resources, including stimulus checks. 

However, there are plenty of families that could still use TANF, Williams said. Based on U.S. Census data looking at poverty rates, about 25,000 New Hampshire families with at least one child live at or below 60% of the poverty line – an income level that qualifies them for TANF. Only about 13 percent of those families are participating in the program, she said. (Income is not the only qualification for TANF, but offers a benchmark for understanding how many families may qualify, Williams noted).

There are two main drivers of the low participation, according to Williams. 

• The first is the relatively low benefit amount, compared to the high cost of living in the Granite State. A single parent with two children can receive a maximum of $1,291 per month on TANF, which covers about 15.8 percent of the monthly cost of living in New Hampshire, the report found. “For a family receiving TANF, cash assistance may still be minimal compared to the cost of living in the state,” Williams said.

• The other reason for low participation is that “the TANF program may not be reaching all families across the state who are eligible,” she said. Families may be unaware that they qualify, or they might have trouble navigating the state’s online application for assistance at NH Easy. “It becomes very confusing for families when they’re trying to apply for services,” Woitkowski said.

The state has worked to make the application accessible, Hebert said, including having a prescreening tool that families can use to see if they might qualify. The tool took less than five minutes when this reporter tried it, much shorter than the time needed to lodge a formal application. Applicants can also reach out to any of the state's 11 district offices for help with the application, Hebert said. 

“We want to make sure we are reaching folks who are eligible for the program,” she said. “We want to make it easy for people so they have an easy and good experience if they need those kinds of services.”

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

What’s next for the state’s education minimum standards?

Legislative committee plans to decide on rules Thursday morning

By Rhianwen Watkins-Granite State News Collaborative

Long-awaited updates to New Hampshire’s education minimum standards for schools, otherwise known as the 306s, are being voted on this Thursday by the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, known as JLCAR. 

On Aug. 14, the State Board of Education approved the first half of the 306s, which was then sent to the JLCAR, which ultimately decided to table the rules until it received the second half of the standards in order to  review the changes in full.

The second half was approved by the State Board of Education on Sept. 16 and is being brought in front of JLCAR this Thursday, Nov 21. 

Reaching Higher, a statewide public education advocacy nonprofit, hosted a webinar on Oct 27, at which its director of public relations, Kelly Untiet, stated that the organization expects JLCAR to vote on both sections of the proposed rules during Thursday’s meeting.

For the rules to pass, they must be approved first by the Legislative Oversight Committee, then by JLCAR. After initially raising multiple concerns about significant areas of the rules, the Legislative Oversight Committee ultimately voted to approve the rules on Oct 27. Now the proposed changes are in JLCAR’s hands.

What are JLCAR’s criteria for approval?

The proposed updates have been the target of overwhelming criticism from educators, including superintendents, teachers, other school administrators, school board members and parents. 

Among the chief critics is Christine Downing, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment for the Cornish, Grantham and Plainfield school districts. She sent the committee considerable written testimony based on comments made at numerous educator review sessions she held across the state. Educators say they’re particularly concerned about the removal of caps on class sizes, wording changes that eliminate requirements for certain program elements, and changes in the qualifications of educators.

On Thursday, JLCAR will review the proposed changes and vote based on four outlined categories: public interest, financial cost, legislative intent and agency’s authority.

What might JLCAR object to?

During the Oct. 27 webinar, Reaching Higher outlined why JLCAR might object to the rule changes, based on these categories:

 • First, are the rules in the public’s interest? Reaching Higher said that, based on the hundreds of pages of public feedback opposing the rules, they may not be. In addition, the consensus among educators across the state is that the rules are unclear and ambiguous in multiple places. Reaching Higher said that could lead to “inconsistent application.”

• The second category concerns whether there is a financial cost that was not outlined in the proposal. Reaching Higher worries that ambiguity and lack of detail in certain areas could result in financial burden for taxpayers. For example, if specific program elements are removed or made optional, then the state may not be responsible for funding them.

• The third category concerns whether the rules support current legislation around education standards, or if they conflict with it. One concern Reaching Higher raised is whether proposed graduation requirements align with state laws. In addition, many educators and even lawyers have expressed concern over whether the proposed rules will meet the New Hampshire Constitution’s requirement for the state to provide an adequate education for every child. This relates to finances. If certain program requirements become optional and are not state-funded, the result could be discrepancies in access to resources among school districts, based on the level of affluence, or lack thereof, in specific communities.

• The final category is whether the proposed standards are within or beyond the authority of the N.H. Department of Education to implement. The department does not have as much authority as lawmakers when it comes to imposing rules. One concern with the revised proposal is that it often refers to “state academic standards” when discussing criteria for what elements particular education programs must cover. Those standards differ from the 306s in that they determine only what students are required to learn, not what the state must fund — which is what the 306s determine. Reaching Higher is concerned that, if the 306s proposal does not define what program requirements must be offered for various subjects — such as an arts education, for example — and instead only refers to the academic standards, there will be questions about to how to deliver these programs and the state won’t be required to fund them. In addition, the academic standards are vastly outdated, with some dating back to the early 2000s. 

Downing is also preparing to testify at Thursday’s meeting about why she thinks the proposed rules changes do not meet the criteria in all four categories.

The JLCAR meeting and hearing will begin 9 a.m. on Thursday in Room 306-308 of the Legislative Office Building in Concord. The proceedings are open to the public. As of this writing, no agenda had been set for Thursday, but it has been confirmed the JLCAR plans to vote on the rules.

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org.

Joint Legislative Committee revises education minimum standards on a 6-4 vote Thursday

By Rhianwen Watkins, Granite State News Collaborative

*The original version was edited to clarify the next step in the process.*

Controversial updates to the education minimum standards for New Hampshire’s public schools were passed Thursday by the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, known as JLCAR. Approval came on a 6-4 vote.

The revised rules have drawn sharp criticism from multitudes of educators who contend they remove caps on the number of students in classrooms, muddle the requirements for teaching specific subjects, and make other changes that will water down what it means to receive a N.H. education. 

Educators are also concerned that the document’s removal of specific requirements and adoption of ambiguous wording are an attempt to ease requirements for state funding of public education, which could shift a bigger financial burden onto local taxpayers and worsen inequities across school districts.

Thursday’s meeting included a public comment period on the second half of the rules, in which everyone who testified objected to the proposed changes, citing many reasons. 

Both sections of the document were passed on a 6-4 vote, with Republican members in the majority.

Now that both the Legislative Oversight Committee and JLCAR have approved them, the rules will go back to the State Board of Education for one more final vote before they are officially adopted.

In accordance with a state law, RSA 541-A:13, JLCAR can adopt the rules or object on any of four criteria: if the proposed rules are “beyond the authority of the agency,” “contrary to the intent of the Legislature,” “determined not to be in the public interest,” or “deemed to have a substantial fiscal impact,” according to the statute.

Rules draw public criticism

Among the witnesses Thursday was Christine Downing, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment for the Cornish, Grantham and Plainfield school districts. As the revised rules were being drawn up, Downing held 17 review sessions around the state to gather opinions from teachers and other educators. 

One of her biggest objections to the rules was ambiguity and lack of consistency in wording, particularly referring to State Academic Standards when discussing course requirements. The State Academic Standards differ from the Education Minimum Standards, in that they define only what a student must learn, not what must be included in a given program — that’s what the minimum standards do.

David Trumble of Weare, a lawyer and farmer who ran for the state Senate this year, objected to the revised standards, citing a state law, RSA 193 E-B, which outlines the state’s “accountability for the opportunity for an adequate education.’

Trumble said the law requires schools to provide an adequate education through both input and output-based accountability — “inputs” being the elements that go into a well-rounded education, such as qualified teachers, defined program elements, and maximum classroom sizes; and “outputs” being the ways a student’s success is measured, such as tests and exams.

He argued the revised rules remove “inputs” by eliminating specifics around what is required for educational programs, and the change in definition of an educator to include school personnel other than teachers. Without these “inputs,” he said, the state is not in compliance with the law.

Others raised concerns about comments by Drew Cline, chairman of the State Board of Education, about classroom size requirements. Cline said the revised standards have reinstated limits on class sizes. However, educators argued the document mentions only student-teacher ratios, not specific numbers on how many students can be in a classroom. 

Giana Gelsey, a member of the Oyster River School Board, told the JLCAR members that  “the class size maximums and class size ratios are not the same. Right now in our school district, we are having an issue with the fact that our kindergarten population exploded. And we are actually figuring out how we are going to actually add classrooms to the current elementary schools we have. And a lot of it is actually linked to the fact that we have limits on how many kids fit in the classroom.” 

Sean Parr, a member of the Manchester Board of School Committee, raised similar concerns.

“Class size is very different than student-educator ratios,” Parr said. “Our district has been very careful in defining these things very specifically in our own policies. We feel it’s very important. The research shows very clearly that class size is much more important than student-educator ratios — that actually having a room with 20 students in it and one teacher is far better than having a room with 40 students in it and two teachers, or a teacher and a para. That research is substantial and clear.”  

The consensus among Democratic legislators on JLCAR was that the proposed rules did not comply with the requirements laid out in all four categories of state law, and that the overwhelming opposition to the revisions showed that they’re not in the public’s interest.

JLCAR member State Sen. Becky Whitley urged her fellow JLCAR members to vote against the revisions.

“The quality of our public education has nothing to do with politics,” she said. “It is the foundation of our democracy. It's a constitutional requirement in the state of New Hampshire. There has been countless litigation defining what is an adequate education,” she said.

“That is what's at stake here. This should not be about politics. Yet, we seem to be going in a direction where we are ignoring the vast majority of our educators, our administrators, our parents, all who have major, major concerns with these rules,” Whitley said. “It is our obligation as elected officials to determine and make an analysis about the public interest and that's what we’re doing here.”

Department of Education defends the proposal

During discussion about the first half of the revised minimum standards, Cline, chair of the State Board of Education, emphasized that the revision process had been inclusive, with 13 listening sessions held across the state and educator input taken into account.

“We listened to that feedback. That feedback really helped shape our draft rules,” Cline said. “Christine Downing was tasked with reviewing the draft rules and giving us feedback, which we took. You will see that the draft rules that were the initial proposal in February are vastly different than the final version you have here and that’s because we took massive amounts of input.”

Downing corrected Cline later on during her testimony, saying she was never “tasked” with reviewing the rules, but rather volunteered herself.

“If you look at these, we're really making very minimal changes,” said Elizabeth Brown, an attorney for the N.H. Department of Education, after answering many questions and defending the proposed changes.

Republican members of JLCAR did not raise significant concerns or share much input during the meeting. However, one member commented that many concerns raised by educators and others opposing the changes were based on older versions of the document, not the most updated one.

It was later found during the meeting that the link to the most updated version of the proposal on the Department of Education’s website was not available at the time, because of an error with the link. The link has since been fixed, but remains absent from the Department of Education’s Minimum Standards Page, where all other information from the department on the proposed updates is found.

Readers can find the updates that were approved Thursday on the Conditional Approvals page of the N.H. Department of Education website.

What will education look like going forward?

Ultimately, the new rules will mean more decisions will become the responsibility of local school boards, said Christina Pretorius, policy director at Reaching Higher NH, a statewide education advocacy nonprofit. Pretorius attended Thursday’s meeting.

It is unclear exactly what impact the rules will have until they are implemented, and impacts could differ between districts.

"The significant concerns from educators and school board members have been repeatedly dismissed,” Pretorius said. ‘They've told the NHED and State Board over the past several years that these rules could downshift costs to local school districts, and would exacerbate the inequities while undermining our public schools."

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visitcollaborativenh.org

New Hampshire towns bear much of the price tag while adapting to climate disasters

Across the state, communities try to prepare for more frequent and intense storms

By Susan Geier, Granite State News Collaborative

As storms increase in frequency and intensity, municipalities across New Hampshire often find themselves recovering and rebuilding from past disasters while coping with the costs and reality of planning for and trying to mitigate future ones. 

“We know our precipitation events are becoming more intense,” said Mary Stampone, the state climatologist and an associate professor of geography at the University of New Hampshire. “We are getting overall wetter, but in bigger storm events.”

State Climatologist Mary Stampone said infrastructure upgrades ‘should be designed for our prospective future – 10 years, 30 years, or 50 years from now. And that depends on money, time, and resources.’ (UNH photo)

Waterville Valley in the White Mountains was one of the towns hard-hit by Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, and more recently by a storm in December 2022, followed by storms in July and December 2023.

Town Administrator Mark DeCoteau and David Noyes, fire chief and emergency management director, said all-hazards planning in the small resort community takes teamwork to not only brainstorm possible disaster scenarios, but determine the steps to prepare for, respond to and recover from what may happen. 

“The resort is the economic hub of the town and a large stakeholder, plus we are surrounded by national forest, and they are a big stakeholder as well,” said DeCoteau. “We are virtually an island in the middle of the forest.” 

Towns and cities get support and technical assistance from the state government and can get aid from federal agencies, but the localities are ultimately the ones responsible for disaster planning and mitigation. 

“Dave and I have gone through that probably three or four times, and we’ve found what always rises to the top is ingress and egress — there is only one road into town,” DeCoteau said. “State Route 49 is a major issue — we need a second route of egress.” 

Noyes added, “We were 12 feet away from being cut off during Irene.”

DeCoteau said the state spent $1 million repairing Route 49, and the town spent $300,000 repairing a pedestrian bridge. 

Thirteen years later, access is still the town’s top priority, but it’s complicated because the town is in the White Mountains National Forest.

“We are working with the federal government to convince them to give up (access to) land and figure out how to pay for it,” DeCoteau said, adding that there are secondary access roads, but their surface is dirt, which means they are not a viable option. 

In the meantime, the town is making repairs while awaiting reimbursement from a December 2023 storm, which cost the town more than $160,000. 

“As far as the town budget, we have a small capital reserve account to use for emergency repairs for infrastructure like roads, sewer and water,” DeCoteau said. “We probably carry about $50,000 to $75,000 a year.” 

“You cannot budget for everything,” he added. “It’s why I appreciate the town funding those capital reserve accounts — we are fortunate in Waterville Valley. It’s not always the case in other communities.” 

‘All disasters start local and end local’

The state’s own hazard mitigation plan noted it needed to focus its attention on natural hazards, and that is reflected in the plan’s 2023 update. Severe winter weather, inland and coastal flooding, high wind events, and aging infrastructure were noted as key hazards.

According to the plan: 

• The average annual temperature has increased about 3 degrees in the state since the early 20th century. Warming has been greater in winter than any other season.

• Precipitation has increased during the last century, with the highest numbers of extreme precipitation events occurring over the last decade. Mean precipitation and precipitation extremes are projected to increase in the future, with associated increases in flooding.

• Rising sea levels pose significant risks to coastal communities and structures, due to inundation, land loss due to erosion, and greater flood vulnerability due to higher storm surge.

“What we have now in terms of infrastructure is different than what we had five years ago,” Stampone said. “Any upgrades should be designed for our prospective future — 10 years, 30 years or 50 years from now. And that depends on money, time and resources.”

The response to climate change, she said, has been a lot of Band-Aid solutions — not planning and mitigation for what’s next. 

“All disasters start local and end local,” said Vanessa Palange, communication coordinator with the state’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.

She and Austin Brown, the department’s chief of mitigation and recovery, noted the state provides a framework for disaster planning and preparedness and technical assistance in applying for federal grants.

In an Aug. 5 letter requesting a federal disaster designation, Gov. Chris Sununu pointed out the state was managing recovery efforts for a dozen active disasters dating back to the summer of 2017. 

He wrote that damage from the storms and flooding this past July “could have been more severe if mitigation work was not previously accomplished.” 

“Since Tropical Storm Irene (August 28, 2011), the state of New Hampshire has utilized over $18,900,000 in Section 404 funding toward mitigation projects throughout the State,” he wrote in the letter. 

Crane Brook Road, a main industrial road in Acworth, was severely damaged in a 2021 storm, and remains closed for the long term, along with another key byway, Thayer Brook Road, which was a bus route and served the main corridor between Alstead and Acworth. (Hunter Oberst/The Keene Sentinel)

With a federal declaration of a disaster, FEMA funds are sent to the state, which then reimburses state agencies and local entities. FEMA will reimburse at least 75 percent of the eligible costs with a local match of 25 percent (often referred to as upfront money). 

‘You don’t know what is going to happen’

On the Seacoast, communities face unique challenges, said Rye Police Chief Kevin Walsh, who is also the town’s emergency management director.

“It is hard for each town and each individual department each year to plan because you don't know what is going to happen,” he said. “You know, sometimes a whale washes up — that has happened. You just never know.”

A whale did wash ashore in Rye back in 2016, but typically the town — like its coastal neighbors — faces regular flooding and storm-related damage. 

“The challenges are maintenance and upkeep,” Walsh said. “Things are often not kept up over the years or decades, and repairs just put it back the way it was. We are always trying to finagle funding.”

He added: “I’ve been in Rye for 30 years and some things have never been tough until now or it’s been a patchwork of repairs. (Infrastructure) needs a major overhaul. Maintenance is usually what gets cut first or put off to manage municipal budgets,”

The worst areas are the seawalls (revetments) from Rye to North Hampton and Bass Beach, which come down in every storm, he said. Significant reengineering and overhauling of problem areas is not just costly, he said, but complex due to the number of jurisdictions involved. 

Walsh cited a situation in 2018 when the sidewalk along Church, Central and Causeway roads was damaged, and the town applied for FEMA funds for repairs. 

“We waited a significant amount of time for [the N.H. Department of Transportation] to repair the revetment/seawall,” Walsh said. “The town waited to repair the sidewalk because, to repair the seawall/revetment, the construction equipment would damage the repaired sidewalk.”

Not long after those sidewalk repairs were made, it was damaged in another storm earlier this year. 

“The saying is ‘do it twice, make it nice.’ “Well, this is money wasted when we do the same repairs twice,” he said. “It’s frustrating because I don’t like to see taxpayer money washed out into the ocean.”

Each location is different

When it comes to repairs, each location is assessed independently, leading to varying degrees of complexity due to factors like environmental regulations, said Brown of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. He said the timeline can be influenced by the type of work needed and the specific issues related to making those repairs. 

“That really becomes the biggest thing — the complexities of each individual location,” Brown said. 

There is some good news. The state received more than $20 million to rebuild seawalls and revetments to protect a coastal roadway between North Hampton and Rye, according to the state DOT. The project is currently in the design and permitting phase, with construction contracts likely to be awarded in 2025.

Jennifer Lane, spokesperson for the state DOT, noted several projects to repair storm damage are in process, and the seawall project is one of those that requires more than repair. 

“You can only rebuild so much,” she said, noting that the project plan outlines how the aging seawalls are no longer adequate due to climate change and sea level rise. 

Funding for the project came from the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

When applying for the grant last year, Sununu wrote to the federal Department of Transportation: “Unfortunately, the frequency of storm and flood events causing extended road closures for flooding and cleanup along NH Route 1A have increased in the last 10 years.”

The latest 1A project  is designed to ensure 3.2 miles of the roadway stays open during storms.

“The Route 1A corridor must stay open for public safety,” Chief Walsh said. “It’s considered critical infrastructure and in the emergency evacuation plan for Seabrook Nuclear Plant.”

While the project will alleviate some of the town’s infrastructure issues, Walsh said that, in an ideal world, there would be funding for design, engineering and construction “from one end of the coast to the other up into Maine in terms of drainage.”

Although that isn’t realistic, he and Town Administrator Matt Scruton said they are extremely appreciative of the support Rye gets from state and federal partners. 

The state has received more than $20 million to rebuild seawalls and revetments along protect Route 1A between North Hampton and Rye that were most recently damaged by coastal flooding in a January storm. (DanTuohy / N.H. Public Radio)

“I cannot speak highly enough of them. They always reach out and make sure we have what we need,” Walsh said. “It’s pretty special to live in New Hampshire, where we get that individual touch.”

‘The domino effect’

In the western part of the state, small communities such as Acworth in Sullivan County have been hit repeatedly by storms in recent years, and the repairs seem never-ending. 

Acworth, population 850, was hit by a storm in 2021 that destroyed 32 roads. 

“We called it the domino effect,” said Kathi Bradt, a member of the select board. “As the town was still in recovery mode, it was hit by another bad summer storm in 2023. It was not exactly back-to-back, but close enough. It had a huge impact for a town of our size.”

Previously, the town would make repairs and move on. However, the 2021 storm changed things. The damage assessment was $20 million. 

“It took a while for everyone to realize just how much damage was done,” she said.

This time around, however, it was time not to repair, but to rethink and reengineer. 

“It was a turning point. We knew we had to make changes and find an engineer with a vision and different solutions,” she said. 

After the 2021 storm, Acworth held a special town meeting to get voter approval for a $2 million loan to be used as front money to start repairs while waiting for federal reimbursement. The town paid the loan off earlier this year, as federal money has cycled back to the town for its current projects. 

But two key roads are off limits for the long term. Crane Brook Road, which is several miles long and has five stream crossings, is a main industrial road. Thayer Brook Road was a bus route and served the main corridor between Alstead and Acworth. 

At the same time, the state is overseeing reconstruction of the Forest Road Bridge. 

“We are at the engineering stage right now, and we pushed the timeline out as far as we can, so we engineer different solutions instead of just putting it back the way it is,” Bradt said. 

“We are talking about 2027 for construction, because you need a year on engineering, a year on permitting, and that kind of permitting goes beyond (the state Department of Environmental Services). It involves the Army Corps of Engineers, then you have to get it scheduled. These roads aren’t going to come back for a couple of years.”

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Beyond the ballot: Understanding the election’s impact

For the last few months, we’ve all been caught up in the election campaigns at both the state and federal levels. But now the election is over, and we know who won and who lost. But what do the results mean and what can we expect in the coming months? Joining us on this episode of “The State We’re In,” are veteran reporter Ethan DeWitt of the New Hampshire Bulletin and Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count, and executive director of the Warren B. Rudman Center for Justice, Leadership, and Public Service at the University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce School of Law.

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

Melanie Plenda:

First, let’s talk about the election results. As veterans of New Hampshire politics, were you surprised by the results?

Ethan DeWitt:

To be honest, not really. I think when you look at the top of the ticket results, the challenge for Kelly Ayotte was to outperform Kamala Harris. Polls were showing that Kamala Harris had an advantage, as Democrats have in this state since 2000 in the presidential race. But as we've seen from Governor Sununu, simply because the state elects a Democrat for president doesn't mean that they won't elect a Republican for governor. 

So at the top of the ticket, I was not too surprised. In terms of the legislative races. I think that they largely followed the top of the ticket in some ways, but also I think the House we've seen realigns itself to how it has looked in past cycles. None of this kind of one- or two-vote advantage, but a more sizable majority for the Republican Party.

Anna Brown:

Like Ethan, I wasn't surprised by these election results in New Hampshire. I think the last poll that I saw the day before the election was very telling. It showed that about 10% of voters who had voted for Biden in the last election cycle were planning on voting for Kelly Ayotte for governor. That's very consistent with New Hampshire's recent history and even longer history of ticket-splitting. It is also worth noting that in the Executive Council and Senate, the way the districts are drawn, it's very hard for Democrats to win in a majority of these districts. So going in, I was already sort of expecting the votes to go that way. I think the House of Representatives ultimately can be the least predictable and oftentimes, for me, the most interesting results. That's really where we really did see that Republican advantage in New Hampshire, which I think was probably driven by their anti-tax messaging that, once again, was sort of Kelly Ayotte coattails.

Melanie Plenda:

Anna, you and your organization have been surveying voters. Why do you think voters made the choices they did? 

Anna Brown:

As I mentioned in the New Hampshire state races, tax and budget issues are really what end up, I think, driving a lot of voters to the polls. Other issues — such as the abortion issue, for example —I think have played out in previous elections. But the Republican candidates in New Hampshire had a very unified message this time — that we are not looking to change New Hampshire abortion law as it currently stands. That obviously resonated with voters.

I think Joyce Craig and other Democrats were pointing out Kelly Ayotte's history with certain corporate boards and saying we should be taxing the rich and looking at the interest and dividends tax maybe. That did not ultimately succeed with voters. I think that Kelly Ayotte's message of ‘don't mess up New Hampshire’, was a very successful message. So I think that the Democrats sort of failed to rally around a clear issue that resonated with voters in the same way as the simplistic message that the Republicans really hit a home run with.

Melanie Plenda:

Several state races were also decided. Let’s talk about the Executive Council first. Anna, first, explain what the council does and then tell us your thoughts? 

Anna Brown:

The New Hampshire Executive Council is uniquely powerful in the United States. They approve governor-appointed contracts over $10,000, so the governor actually kind of needs to have the Executive Council on their side to implement their vision for state government for all of those appointments, including judicial appointments. We know that state courts, state supreme courts, in particular, are going to become increasingly important as the U.S. Supreme Court is sending issues back to the states, such as the abortion issue. So I think that the Executive Council is going to definitely be an ally to Governor Ayotte. We've had a 4-1 Republican majority, and I'm not expecting any great battles there. 

Melanie Plenda:

Next, let’s talk about the state senate. Republicans expanded their majority there. What does that mean for the next cycle?

Ethan DeWitt:

Again, this expanded from a 14/-10 Republican advantage to a 16-8 Republican advantage. That is a veto-proof majority. I'm unsure at the moment what issues there might be in which a Republican Senate would want to override a veto by a Governor-elect Ayotte. But that is the most apparent transformation of the Senate.

Other than that, I think it’s, just like with the council, going to give her a lot of padding. Especially with the House, which has traditionally leaned more libertarian, and that has caused problems for more moderate Republicans like Governor Sununu. Sununu throughout his time as governor, kind of used the Senate as sort of a backstop to some of the budgets that the House would put forward. Because the House gets to draft a budget before the Senate does, and the House drafted something that's deemed too conservative, he, would call on the Senate to kind of “fix it.” So this might be a tool for Ayotte, especially with the wide majorities now in the Senate. She may be able to use that, but it kind of depends on how the Senate is run.

Melanie Plenda:

Republicans also expanded their majority in the House of Representatives. What impact will that have?

Anna Brown:

I think that the biggest impact this will have is on a few issues that Republicans tried to get over the finish line last year and the year before  and didn't quite have the votes with that very tight Democrat-Republican split.

Probably the first one that leapt to mind, as soon as I saw the results come in, was some version of a parental bill of rights. There were many versions of those bills, but basically, think about — What do schools have to disclose to parents? What do schools have to get permission from parents, whether we're talking about student pronoun use, student names, books in the classroom, books in the library, different curriculum choices. So what exact form does that bill take? Yet to be seen, but it’s absolutely an issue that many Republicans are passionate about,

Ethan DeWitt:

I have heard from top Republicans that there is a bill that was filed ahead of the election that got a lot of attention. It would create a deportation task force in the state. The bill does not define that, because we don't have the text of the bill, but I've already heard from top Republicans who are also in leadership, who say they don't support that. So I think that's going to be an interesting wedge issue. 

The other thing I would point to with this increased majority, in addition to the parental Bill of Rights, is an expansion of Education Freedom Accounts. There was a push, including by Governor-elect Ayotte, to try to make those universal. But again, that comes against the backdrop of this budget and potentially having to tighten it. If you make that program universal, then the budget for that program could, theoretically, increase quite a lot.

I think that looking at the budget generally is going to be really interesting to see. When you looked at the budget two years ago under a very, very closely divided almost 200-200 House The majority Republicans did something I thought was pretty remarkable and surprising. They decided to cut a deal with Democrats. Despite a lot of them having come up the ranks from the libertarian side, including House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, they cut a deal with Democrats. A lot of the people on their side didn't like that. Now they've got a lot more security in numbers and they will try to forge ahead with a more conservative budget.

Melanie Plenda:

Now that these elections are over, things will be gearing up soon for the next election in New Hampshire, which is related to Town Meeting. These elections don’t get the same turnout, but they can have a big impact on voters’ lives. Ethan and Anna, explain why these matter and what you’ll be following. 

Ethan DeWitt:

Obviously this is the most local format to make your voice known when it comes to your own town's budget, so town meeting season is always important.

I think a few things will be interesting. There is a new voting law that will be in place that requires voter ID. There is also a new law that requires that there be accessible voting machines provided by the state to towns. I think that will be in place as well. I think that there will be some questions about special education funding. I've heard this week that the Department of Education sent out a letter to school districts saying that this state is facing a shortfall of special education funding and that towns will have to make up more of that budget expense, and I think that'll be interesting to watch as it pertains to school district budgets.

Anna Brown:

I was actually already going to be watching special education funding- related issues because we saw that to be a real problem in some towns and districts this past year as well, because the number of students in these programs has been increasing and some of that also carries increased staff costs. We've also seen health care costs for schools go up quite a bit. So Pembroke, for example, I know, had almost a crisis situation with their school funding at their local meetings last year.

So if you're in a tough budget year as well, there's going to be a lag before the state implements its budget changes, and those would filter down to the local level. But I wouldn't be surprised if those conversations do happen at the local level already, because all of these problems are going to be compounded going forward, and we haven’t talked about what’s going on with school-funding lawsuits in the state. That’s another big question mark.

Melanie Plenda:

That was fascinating. Thanks to veteran reporter Ethan DeWitt from the New Hampshire Bulletin and Anna Brown, executive director of Citizens Count, for sharing your thoughts.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org

Bridging the divide: Tackling America's post-election ‘perception gap’

The 2024 presidential election results are in, and it seems like Americans are more polarized than ever. For years, we’ve seemed to live in an increasingly polarized society of Democrats and Republicans, red states and blue states, liberals and conservatives. But how divided is our society? And is that perception truly the reality? On this episode of “The State We’re In,” More in Common Executive Director Jason Mangone discusses the organization’s research into the “perception gap” and its efforts to unite increasingly divided societies. 

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Rosemary Ford:

First, tell us more about More in Common, and what you do. 

Jason Mangone:

More in Common is a nonpartisan research organization that tries to reduce the harmful aspects of polarization. That means that we try to understand the forces driving us apart, see common ground and bring Americans together to tackle our shared challenges as a practical matter. That means we release dozens of studies and polls every year, and the punchline of a lot of our work is sort of in the name. We think that Americans have way more in common than we think we do.

Rosemary Ford:

Tell us about the perception gap study. How did that come about? How was it conducted? 

Jason Mangone:

To begin with, it's probably worth defining what we mean by perception gap. So a perception gap is the difference between what someone thinks their political opponent feels about an issue and what their political opponent actually feels about an issue. It’s implicit in the idea that we have more in common than we think we do. There's some sort of fundamental misunderstanding going on that we don't really get one another — particularly in the arena of politics. That's because we think politics is a really poor lens for understanding someone in general. 

We wanted to look into these ideas, which is sort of the inspiration study. We released our first perception gap study in 2019, and we've been releasing various perception gaps ever since. To give an example of how we conduct these studies, let's say that we wanted to gauge Democrats' perception gaps on a particular issue. We begin by asking thousands of Republicans whether they agree with something. So, for example, we've asked thousands of Republicans, “Do you agree that Americans have a responsibility to learn from our past and fix our mistakes?” Turns out, about 93% of Republicans agree with this statement. We then asked thousands of Democrats, “What percentage of Republicans do you think agree with that statement?” It turns out that all Democrats estimate that only about 35% of Republicans would agree with the statement. That means that, on the issue, “Do you agree that Americans have a responsibility to learn from our past and fix their mistakes?” there's a 58% perception gap — 93% of Republicans agree with that statement, but only 35% of Democrats think Republicans would agree with that.

Rosemary Ford:

What were the key findings of the study? 

Jason Mangone:

One in particular, I think, is the idea of patriotism, love of country and understanding of our history that's been cycling through our politics for the last eight or 10 years. I think there's a stereotype where we think that Republicans think that American history is perfect, that we've done no wrong, and we stereotype Democrats as classifying our entire history as sort of sinful. 

I've already highlighted an example of the Democrat perception gap here, but Republicans estimate that only 45% of Democrats agree with this statement. In other words, we think that our political opponents either love our history and our country blindly, or they want to dismiss our history completely. In truth, an overwhelming majority of Americans agree with the idea that our country has both achieved great things and also made some harmful mistakes along the way, and that both of these things are true at the same time. So all that is to say, our ideas of our sense of history and our ideas of patriotism are much more aligned than we think they are. We have a ton of perception gaps. 

In addition to the idea of patriotism, I also wanted to highlight one around immigration. It turns out that over 85% of Republicans agree that properly controlled immigration can be good for America. Democrats estimate that only around half of Republicans agree with this statement, so they underestimated by about 35%. On the same issue, around 75% of Democrats disagree with the idea that we should have open borders, but Republicans estimate that only around 40% of Democrats hold this view, meaning there's a 35% perception gap.

All that is to say, as it turns out, is that most Americans want a secure system of legalized immigration and most Americans want both order and compassion for immigrants. Obviously, that's not how we talk about it in the political arena.

Rosemary Ford:

How expected were these findings? 

Jason Mangone:

We knew that there would be gaps in people's understanding, particularly when the lens through which you're looking at those gaps is politics. We do a really, really bad job of understanding who people are and who are political opponents. So that wasn't altogether surprising. 

What was most surprising to me was some of the drivers of these gaps. Anytime that More in Common does a study, we break the American population down into seven segments that we think are much more representative about how people view themselves in the world than sheer red or blue demography. The farthest left and the farthest right are referred to as the wings.Those groups in the middle are referred to as the exhausted majority. So it goes from progressive activists, traditional liberals, passive liberals, the politically disengaged, the moderates, traditional conservatives and devoted conservatives.

The most surprising thing to me, pretty much, anytime we do a perception gap study is that if you look at the rates of perception gaps, it's almost a perfect V shape, which is to say the perception gaps are perception gaps are greatest among those people on the wings of politics, and they’re lowest among the politically disengaged, right in the middle. The surprising thing there is that the people that are the most politically disengaged have the best understanding of what their political opponents actually think about various political issues.

Rosemary Ford:

What role is social media playing in all of this? How does that influence the perception gap or influence it?

Jason Mangone:

First off, I never like to come across as completely anti-social media. I think that it's given people freedom to express ideas, which is vital and important. I also think that it's a relatively new technology, and we're figuring out how to fit it in to our day-to-day lives right now.

With that being said, when it comes to politics, most of the algorithms in social media are driven by engagement, and the most engaging content tends to be divisive. It's also true that the people who are likely to share political views on social media are progressive activists on one wing and devoted conservatives on the other. So I wouldn't say that it's entirely social media's fault. I would say that progressive activists and devoted conservatives tend to be the most active on social media. Those algorithms tend to highlight the most divisive views because they tend to be the most engaging. It's what we want to consume.

As a result, a lot of our political discourse becomes driven by people on the wings. I think the important distinction there is that it's not entirely the social media companies’ fault. A lot of it is who's actually willing to get out there and share political views on social media. It turns out that it’s the people who are most politically engaged, who frame things primarily through the lens of politics, and those people in general tend to be people on the wings.

Rosemary Ford:

Why should the average person be concerned about the perception gap? 

Jason Mangone:

I think it's really a call to have some political humility. Don't think about people as entirely political animals. One of the implicit ideas in perception gaps is that you could look at perception gaps between any two out groups — Democrats-Republicans, Yankees fans-Red Sox fans, and I'm sure that there are misunderstandings among a lot of them. The point is that when we look at things through a primarily political lens, we tend to misunderstand, because politics is a really, really bad lens for understanding a human being. I think how the average person should react to it and why they should be concerned by it is that, because politics shapes so much of our culture and so much of how we think about ourselves nowadays, it's a call that we're really misunderstanding one another.

Rosemary Ford:

In light of the election, what do you expect to see with the perception gap?

Jason Mangone:

I will caveat what I’m about to say by saying that we have a poll hitting the field where we ask a number of perception gap questions, because whatever is in the media tends to have the highest perception gaps. I would guess that the largest perception gaps are going to be around issues associated with the biggest news, and today it's the fact that former President Trump won not just the Electoral College, but the national popular vote. So I would imagine that the largest perception gaps will be around people's perspectives on Trump, not just as a political figure, but as a human being. 

Rosemary Ford:

Do you have suggestions for bridging this divide? 

Jason Mangone:

I'll start with what the worst idea is. The worst idea is to say, “We're going to get a bunch of us together and we're going to talk about politics, because we all disagree with each other.” We need to talk, that's fine, but an example is the holidays. Around my dinner table, around the holidays, there's some Trump voters and there's some Harris voters, there's some Republicans, there's some Democrats, there's some upper-middle-class folks, there's some working-class folks. We don't go to that holiday dinner saying, “We're gonna get together and talk about our political differences.” No, we get together because we're a family. We share our common values and traditions, and the food's really good, and all the other stuff might come up as a result. But the point is, we see one another in our common humanity, because the thing that got us there is much more important than sheer demography that's ultimately colored blue or red. 

So that's a really long way of saying, get involved in your community in ways that have nothing to do with politics. Join a club, join the board of your local Little League, become a volunteer firefighter — there's a million things that you can do. But the point is, get together, where people across the political spectrum might be getting together for reasons that have nothing to do with politics.

Rosemary Ford:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. 

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.

Survey reliability: How much do polls affect elections?

With the 2024 election behind us, the seemingly daily reports on new polls have ended for now. But what do polls really mean? How accurate are they? What impact do they have on voters and elections? University of New Hampshire Professor Andrew Smith, director of the UNH Survey Center, talks with host Melanie Plenda about just that.

By Rosemary Ford and Caitlin Agnew

This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Melanie Plenda:

Where do polls come from and how long have we been using them to analyze political races?

Dr. Andrew Smith:

Polls have been around for an awfully long time. The oldest one that we've been able to identify in the United States is in the 1824 election. They were referred to as straw polls back then, but they were started by a newspaper, the Harrisburg Pennsylvanian, and it was done to, frankly, increase the number of people who bought the newspaper at that time and to help inform readers as to what people in the Harrisburg, area thought about the 1824 election. Throughout the 1800s, we saw an expansion of these, particularly in the later half of the 1800s as the penny press really developed in the United States.

By the turn of the century, there were quite a few national straw polls and well over 100 individual local area straw polls. So it's not a new thing, but it's really important to remember that the reason that the media got into the polling business was to sell newspapers. I think that's a critical thing to remember, because the reason that sells more newspapers is that people are always interested in what is going to happen. I think it sold newspapers then, and it's kind of clickbait for the press now to run polls. 

Melanie Plenda:

That leads to my next question – what sort of an impact do they have on races and voters? 

Dr. Andrew Smith:

There's very little research that shows that polls have much of an impact one way or the other on elections. There's always a fear that a poll showing one candidate leading by a large amount will either lead the supporters of a candidate who's losing supporters to give up and stay home, or maybe cause the supporters of a candidate who's leading to say that they have already won and don't have to bother to go to the polls. But there's very, very little evidence that supports any of that.

The only real data that I've been able to identify that shows that polls had an impact was in the 1980 presidential election. What happened that year was that the exit polls were released early. This was the Carter v. Reagan election, and Jimmy Carter actually conceded defeat before the polls in California closed, and some Democratic congressmen in California asserted that they lost because many people that were going to go vote after work decided, “What’s the point? The election is already over.” So that's really the only evidence that we have. 

Melanie Plenda:

How has polling evolved in the past decades? I would imagine technology and changing social demographics have changed things.

Dr. Andrew Smith:

The polling industry is in the midst of a paradigm shift, and it's similar to what happened in the 1960s and 1970s, when polls moved from in-person surveys to telephone surveys. The technology for telephones improved, the coverage of telephones improved, so most households in the country had a telephone by the late 1960s. But it took a long time for researchers to come up with the best practices, the methodological strategies, in order to use this new technology. 

It's important to remember that the big driver of that methodological change in the 1960s and 1970s telephone surveys was the cost, because in-person surveys were an order of magnitude more expensive than telephone surveys and  harder to manage, and then organizing the data and analyzing it. So the time frame was worse. Telephones made that much shorter. 

Now, with web surveys and the development of the internet and the expansion of coverage of the internet to most households in the country or the internet plus a cell phone — we can kind of call that the quasi-internet — we changed how we can go at people because of the cost. It costs far less with an internet- or a web-based poll, because you don't have to have an interviewer. We're seeing the industry move to that, and the clients as well. The development of the internet, the development of cell phones, and the declining response rates, I think, are the biggest drivers of this change in methodology. 

So we're in this process where economics are driving us to change the way we do survey research, and we haven't developed the best practices as an industry yet to say this is how you should do it, this is the more accurate way, these are the procedures that lead to more accurate predictions in polling, and it's going to take several years before we're out of the woods with that. So I'm very cautious about it.

Melanie Plenda:

Let’s dig a little deeper. How can the average person tell a “good” from a “bad” poll?

Dr. Andrew Smith:

The human instinct is to trust the polls that show us the outcome that we prefer and say that the other one must have serious methodological flaws. But I think that's a bad way to approach it.

What I would trust is surveys more that start with a random sample — a probability-based survey. So if you see the word “probability” in the methodology section of the survey, which I would encourage everybody to read, I’d give that more weight.  If it makes no mention of probability, that probably means that there is no random sampling going on. 

The second thing that I would do is look for something called a transparency initiative stamp, or a logo on that survey, or an indication that this organization is showing their work. APOR, the  American Association of Public Opinion Research, recognizes that there are a lot of different methodologies out there and asks, “The best thing we can do is ask survey research to show us what they did. How did they draw their sample? Where did they get the sample from? How were the surveys collected? When were the surveys collected? Who's paying for the surveys?” All of those sorts of things you need to take into account.  If a survey does not have that transparency initiative seal approval, I would be less willing to accept the results of that because it shows they are less willing to show their work. 

Melanie Plenda:

So talk to us a little bit more about why a sample group and the makeup of that sample group is so important.

Dr. Andrew Smith:

Well, what we try to do in surveys is draw a sample from the population that is representative of the population. And by doing that at random, we can use the central limit theorem to say that the estimates that we get from our sample are within this range of where the actual population number would be if we could go out and interview everyone in the population. Even with a random sample, you don't necessarily have one that's completely representative of the population. In fact, it's pretty much impossible to do that, but you want to be pretty close, and the central limit theorem at least allows us to say within a range of how close we think our estimate is from the overall population. 

Melanie Plenda:

That’s fascinating. Thank you for joining us and talking about the polls.

“The State We’re In” is a weekly digital public affairs show produced by NH PBS and The Marlin Fitzwater Center for Communications. It is shared with partners in the Granite State News Collaborative, of which both organizations are members. These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.