In the final hours of this election season, Republicans are taking heart in the latest polls showing them making gains on the Democrats.
For activists in both parties, their attention is now focused on one thing -- make sure that their supporters actually go to the polls.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Jon Greenberg has more.
The final hours are the time to fire up the troops.
On Saturday in Manchester, a Democratic crowd was clearly energized by the prospect of Democratic gains, although Governor John Lynch warned them against any sense of overconfidence.
Lynch
On Sunday in Salem, Republican congressman Charles Bass, who faces a tougher race than any incumbent would want to see, challenged his suporters to prove the polls wrong.
Bass
The Republican get out the vote operation has pulled in resources from many corners of the party. The GOP has a reputation for running a effective ground game, but in New Hampshire, it seems to have started a bit late. The statewide coordinator, Stacy Shuster, came to the state five weeks ago, through the work of the Republican National Committee. Last week, Shuster said the party was on track to manage its phone banks and door to door neighborhood walks.
Stacy
This weekend, volunteers went door to door across the state. Tom DeRosa head of the state college Republicans was in Manchester's First Ward. His group didn't have maps or voter lists, but they did have boxes of campaign literature.
Strategy
DeRosa calls himself and his fellow College Republicans the foot soldiers of the party. This afternoon, they went up to every house that didn't boast a lawn sign for a Democratic candidate and politely hand delivered their flyers or left them in the door. Tom's message for everyone was simple "Don't forget to vote on Tuesday."
The same afternnon, over in Derry, Chris O'Neil was delivering the same message on behalf of Democrats. O'Neil volunteers for congressional candidate, Democrat Carol Shea Porter. O'Neil did have a list of voters and a highlighted Google map. But it was, he acknowledged, a tough list – Derry is a very Republican town and O'Neil was going after registered independents.
Independents
The reality of these face to face efforts is that there is a lot of effort for perhaps not so many votes. O'Neil rarely found anyone home and spoke to only a handfull of people. After four hours, O'Neil had found one independent who was ready to support Shea-Porter, although he had also come across a couple of committed Democrats.
The campaigns know that a personal visit is the best way to motivate someone to go out and vote, but given how labor intensive that is, both parties rely heavily on phone banks to reach their voters. Nick Clemmons, State Democratic Executive Director, has some very high goals in the final push before the polls open.
Clemmons
The first indication of success will come in the middle of the day. Party strategist in both camps will be focused on turnout in party strongholds. If it is healthy in those towns, they will have a sense that all their efforts in the final days might pay off.
For NHPR News, I'm Jon Greenberg
