The New Hampshire primary for the Republican race is tonight. This is the first primary in the nation and kicks off the race immediately after the Iowa caucuses. New Hampshire has been seen as a stronghold for Mitt Romney. So the real question is, who will come in second and how far behind will they be from Romney?
It appears that Ron Paul is going to make another showing in New Hampshire. In the last poll before the primary started, Paul was in a distant second place with 20% of the vote, but catching up behind him is Jon Huntsman with 18% and climbing. How well Ron Paul does over Huntsman will depend on how much of the Millennial vote he can get.
Ron Paul did extremely well in Iowa with the Millennial vote. If he can keep that momentum going into New Hampshire tonight and then into South Carolina, it will be hard for Republicans to ignore him (though they still probably will). But is there another candidate in town that at least thinks he can get the Millennial voting base.
That man is Newt Gingrich. According to his campaign, he is the one that can speak to the new Millennial voters. Can he? I think so. His no holds barred approach is very refreshing, though the constant attacks may start to wear on people. What Millennials might like best about Gingrich is that he has some dramatic ideas about where to take the country. Ron Paul has dramatic ideas as well, but on a different course.
Then again, Gingrich has a lot of problems. He has flip flopped on supporting Occupy Wall Street, which is mostly made up of Millennials. He has now gone from a passive positive campaigner to an “angry attack muffin”, as Peggy Noonan said in a WSJ op-ed. Generally speaking, Millennials are not fond of vicious attacks on other candidates. Gingrich is slowly slipping into the morass of a negative campaigner.
Unfortunately, it is often hard to find data on how Millennials voted. For some reason we aren’t on the radar as much as I would like. That’s where The Political Zealot comes into play! Let me know what you think?
