President Barack Obama carried New Hampshire, CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN networks projected, giving him a crucial win in a state he also carried four years ago.
With the fight for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House closely contested, New Hampshire’s four electoral votes figured prominently in each candidate’s game plan for reaching the threshold.
With 26 percent of the state’s precincts reporting, Obama had 54 percent of the vote to Romney’s 44 percent, according to the Associated Press.
Romney and Obama both visited the state during the campaign’s final days after having frequently stumped there previously and showering it with millions of dollars of advertising spending.
New Hampshire was one of the nine battleground states --and the only one in New England -- that attracted the bulk of campaign attention in this year’s race.
For Obama, New Hampshire was seen as one of his bulwarks in case southern states that he won in 2008, including Florida and Virginia, moved into the Republican camp. For Romney, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts who owns a summer home in New Hampshire, the state was viewed was his best chance for a win in New England.
Campaign Ads
Obama’s campaign ran 12,297 ads from Aug. 31-Oct. 29 for an estimated $8.3 million, about two-thirds of the 18,931 ads broadcast in the state, according to New York-based Kantar Media’s CMAG, which tracks TV advertising. Romney’s campaign spent an estimated $1.5 million on 1,617 spots during that period while an allied super-political action committee, American Crossroads, spent about $3.8 million on 4,127 spots that attacked Obama, CMAG reported.
New Hampshire’s unemployment rate was 5.7 percent in September, below the national average of 7.8 percent and down from a high of 6.7 percent in January 2010, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Obama won New Hampshire by nine percentage points over his 2008 Republican opponent, Senator John McCain of Arizona. Obama’s fellow Democrat, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, carried it in 2004 presidential race while Republican George W. Bush, then the governor of Texas, won it in 2000.
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