In N.H., candidates woo the independents
NASHUA, N.H. - The owner of a small software company, Peyton McManus is interested in talking about business and health-care costs - not "crazy stuff."
NASHUA, N.H. - The owner of a small software company, Peyton McManus is interested in talking about business and health-care costs - not "crazy stuff."
"I just don't hear the Republican Party messaging to me," McManus, of Durham, said last week after attending a presidential campaign event for Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Before they choose a candidate Tuesday, New Hampshire voters like McManus - who considered Republican Kasich "pragmatic," along with Republican Jeb Bush and Democrat Hillary Clinton - first must pick a primary.
In New Hampshire, undeclared voters - who are 44 percent of the registered electorate and are often described as independents - can decide on the day of the election to vote Republican or Democratic, creating the potential for unpredictable outcomes.
A recent poll by Boston NPR station WBUR found that one-third of undeclared voters surveyed hadn't chosen a side. The poll, conducted by the MassINC Polling Group, excluded respondents who said they wouldn't vote.
"This primary is three-dimensional chess," said Tom Rath, a longtime GOP strategist in New Hampshire who is advising Kasich - the Republican the WBUR poll found was most likely to benefit from a strong independent turnout on the GOP side. "The hardest thing to predict is where these undeclareds are going to go."
With Donald Trump holding a substantial lead in New Hampshire polls on the Republican side, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders the same on the Democratic side, undeclared voters may "wait even longer than they have in years past" to decide, said Mike Dennehy, an unaffiliated Republican strategist in New Hampshire, who advised Arizona Sen. John McCain's presidential campaigns.
But some political analysts say the "independent" vote is much less up for grabs than headlines suggest. Most who are undeclared tend to lean either Republican or Democratic, and no candidate has won the primary without a plurality of his or her own party's vote, said Andy Smith, who runs the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.
"Independents are like the icing on the cake," Smith said. But "they're not going to get you over the top."
Of the idea that independents were a large bloc of swing voters, Smith said: "This story has been around as long as the New Hampshire primary. It doesn't bear fruit."
Still, campaigns ascribe importance to courting such voters. Independents are "very important" to Gov. Christie's campaign, said Wayne MacDonald, Christie's New Hampshire chairman.
"Independents are independent for a reason - they don't want to be locked into a party label," MacDonald said. "They tend to be more results-oriented."
Christie's campaign has tried to reach independents by holding events "all over the state, in areas that aren't exactly rock-red Republican," and through messaging that he's "prepared to work with everyone," regardless of party, MacDonald said.
As for how Christie would fare with independents, "that's the wild card," MacDonald said.
One independent the governor won over was Catherine Johnson, 56, of Hanover. After attending 50 town-hall meetings held by different candidates, Johnson signed onto Christie's campaign as a volunteer.
"He's pro-life, but he respects that I'm pro-choice," Johnson said, adding she liked Christie's emphasis on being "pro-life" for "the entire life," a line the governor uses while calling for a compassionate approach to drug addiction.
Johnson also felt Christie's message was tempered on gun rights: "He's not getting up there and saying the government wants to take your guns away." Christie has bashed New Jersey's gun laws as "some of the worst" in the country and likened gun-control laws to substance-free "cotton candy."
But he also has struck a softer tone - telling voters during a town-hall meeting last month in New Hampshire that he cried after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
To target independents, "you're telling them we may ultimately disagree on an issue, but at the end of the day, you'll always know where I stand," said Dennehy, the former McCain adviser. Christie often conveys that message to voters.
Kasich has described the Republican Party as "my vehicle, not my master."
"I've had a lot of people describe the campaign" on the Republican side "as kind of dark," Kasich told McManus, the voter who felt alienated by the GOP. "Mine isn't." Among the actions he pledged to take as president were to "pay attention to the environment" and "do things that lift people."
To reach independents, Kasich's campaign treats all undeclared voters as potential Republican voters. "Until we have data, they say, don't call me. . . . We mail them, include them in canvassing," Rath said.
Among the attendees at the Kasich event was Francis Johnson, who liked both the Ohio governor and Sanders - the candidate who would benefit most from high independent turnout on the Democratic side, according to the WBUR poll.
"I think they're really looking out for the people," said Johnson, a retired assisted-living worker who lives in Newmarket. "I'm looking for the candidate that's real."
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