http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-nh_zuckman_bdnov04,1,3438251.storyHOPKINTON, N.H. - Republican Peter Spaulding went into Election Day last fall on the power of 22 years in office, plenty of campaign money, even the endorsement of the Democratic governor. So certain were Spaulding's prospects for re-election to this state's Executive Council that his opponent, Democrat John Shea, left for a Belgian vacation before the votes were counted.
But New Hampshire has become a very different place in the past decade, its demographics and politics transformed. The caricature of uniformly staunch Granite State conservatism is badly out of date, and that is shaping the way candidates campaign here too.
Shea pulled off a surprising victory, but that was just part of last year's Republican collapse. A Democratic surge, fueled by anger at President Bush and the Iraq war, ousted Republicans from county clerks to congressmen. New Hampshire's two GOP House members both lost, the state legislature turned Democratic for the first time since 1874 and Hopkinton sent three Democrats to the legislature for the first time.
"You could sort of see it coming through the night," said Spaulding, who serves as New Hampshire chairman for Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign. "You kept waiting for the Republican areas to come in, and when they did come in, they didn't come in with enough of a margin or they went the other way."
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