Dan Barrick

Update, Sept. 7: You can find Republican Ted Gatsas' completed questionnaire here.

Taxes. The economy. Education spending. The opioid epidemic. New Hampshire's next governor faces a long list of policy challenges when he or she takes office in January. With the largest field of contenders in at least two decades, sorting through the gubernatorial candidates' positions on these and other issues is no easy task.

The classic gerrymandered map you learned about in high school civics class is full of oddly-shaped legislative districts, drawn with obvious intent to boost one party.

But in New Hampshire, that’s rarely the case: It’s very hard to see, just by looking at the election maps, which districts might help or hurt a certain party’s chances.

So has gerrymandering been a factor in the state’s politics? And if so, how much?

Conventional wisdom holds that Bernie Sanders' and Donald Trump's big wins in New Hampshire’s presidential primary earlier this month were driven by hordes of irregular and first-time voters flocking to the polls.

But a review of preliminary voting data doesn’t exactly back up that premise.

If you want to know whether Hillary Clinton will stay close to Bernie Sanders Tuesday, or are looking for an early hint of how the Republican race will end up, here's a tip: Keep an eye on Rochester.

In the final week of the New Hampshire presidential primary, NHPR is taking a closer listen to how some of the candidates are pitching themselves to the state's voters – through their standard stump speech. We've taken a few key moments in a recent speech and marked up the sound in each clip - just click listen to see them roll out. 

Here's an annotated recording of a recent speech by Democrat Bernie Sanders, delivered January 14, 2016 at Dartmouth's Spaulding Auditorium. (You can hear the full speech using the player at the bottom of this story.)

New Hampshire political history resounds with the names of candidates who used the state's First in the Nation Presidential Primary to vault to national political fame. 

Jimmy Carter. Bill Clinton. John McCain.

But what did those primary elections look like in the moment, town by town across New Hampshire? Where did Bill Clinton stake out his biggest wins, to ensure a close second-place finish in the 1992 primary (and resurrect his presidential campaign in the process)? Just how big was Patrick Buchanan's legendary win in the 1996 GOP Primary? What towns have Republican candidates most consistently relied on to win?

It’s one of the most conventional nuggets of political wisdom: To win an election, first secure your base, then expand from there.

But recent New Hampshire political history shows that candidates can win their party’s core towns, and still lose the election. It happened, in both parties’ presidential primaries, in 2008. 

We're now just one month away from Primary Day in New Hampshire, when the politicking stops (or at least moves elsewhere) and the voting starts.

Maybe you're only now paying attention to the race. Maybe you still haven't decided how to cast your ballot, or want to brush up on a particular issue. In any case, help is here. 

The presidential primary trail is taking a rare detour through New Hampshire’s North Country this week.

Whether measured in polls, crowds or money raised, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton appear in a tight race as New Hampshire's Primary Day approaches.

Clinton, of course, is no stranger to hard-fought Granite State contests. She edged out Barack Obama in New Hampshire’s 2008 Democratic presidential primary, winning 39 percent of the vote to Obama’s 37 percent.   

But the bottom-line vote tallies can obscure a simple fact: The New Hampshire primary is not just a statewide contest. 

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While the New Hampshire Primary has been humming along at top speed for months, it’s easy to overlook the fact that two basic details have yet to be wrapped up: the actual date of the Primary election, and the official candidate names to appear on the ballot. At least one of those should start looking a bit firmer this week.

When the Department of Education released its latest round of state-level reading and math scores this week, it was cause for cheer in New Hampshire. The state ranked in the top two or three states in every category and grade-level tests.

Those kind of high marks have been common in New Hampshire for years. But a recent report suggests the state’s status as one of the nation’s top test-takers should come down a few notches. 

Last week we examined the campaign money landscape in the New Hampshire Primary, both how candidates are raising money in the state, and how they're spending it.

But what do those dollars mean against the national campaign fundraising picture?

Presidential candidates boosted their spending in New Hampshire this summer, spending nearly six times as much as they did in the previous three month period.

The Republican and Democratic candidates doled out nearly $2 million across the state from July to September. The vast majority of that cash, however, went to a small handful of Republican operatives and consultants -- and the New Hampshire Democratic Party.

 The 2016 race for New Hampshire governor is rapidly gathering momentum, even with Election Day more than a year away. Candidacies are being launched by the day, it seems. Pledges made. Priorities listed. Promises floated.

And now we have the first campaign ad of the race. It comes courtesy of Republican Frank Edelblut, a state legislator who's apparently hoping to ride-share his way to the governor's office. 

For as long as New Hampshire has hosted the nation’s first presidential primary contest, it seems outsiders have been trying to dilute the state’s influence. The latest such attempt comes from the Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus.

In an interview with the National Journal, Priebus says he’s been supportive of early nominating states like New Hampshire and Iowa in the past, but “I don’t think anyone should get too comfortable.”

Listen to enough political punditry, and you could easily conclude that America's rural areas are vast swaths of Republican support, with little variety in political opinion or voter demographics.

But recent research from the University of New Hampshire's Carsey School of Public Policy undercuts that assumption. In fact, rural America is actually surprisingly varied, researchers found -- at least when it comes to election results.

WBUR released a new poll of the Republican presidential field this morning. The results mirror other recent polling of the GOP race: Donald Trump and Ben Carson bunched at the top, the rest of the field far below.

As New Hampshire lawmakers prepare for the next phase of the state's long-simmering budget debate, they're being urged to consider a cautionary tale from half-way across the country.

As hosts of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, Granite Staters often claim a reputation for political sophistication and civic engagement. But a new report finds that relatively few residents are politically involved and, when Election Day rolls around, they are more likely to accept the status quo and stay home rather than cast a ballot.  

When it comes to 2016 presidential campaign spending in New Hampshire, there’s one clear winner so far: The state Democratic Party. 

Roughly 30 percent of total candidate spending in New Hampshire so far this year has gone to the state party, and it came as a single, $100,000 expense: Hillary Clinton’s purchase of the party’s so-called "voter file." 

NHPR's recent interactive map showing how Granite Staters are donating to the 2016 presidential candidates is a unique visual guide to campaign fundraising.

On first glance, a couple of obvious geographic partisan disparities jump out. For instance, Republican donors are heavily concentrated in southern Hillsborough County and Rockingham County. There's also a pocket of Republican donors in the Lakes Region.

Rep. Frank Guinta's recent troubles with the Federal Election Commission have put a serious dent in his fundraising efforts over the past few months. 

Governor Maggie Hassan’s veto of the Republican-backed state budget bill has dominated State House news in recent weeks. But Hassan’s veto pen has seen plenty of non-budget action this session, as well.