Few N.H. voters worried about security at northern border
Immigration overall seen as problematic
CONCORD, N.H. – Most New Hampshire voters are not concerned about security at New Hampshire’s northern border with Canada, according to a new poll of likely voters in the Granite State conducted by the Boston Globe, USA Today, and Suffolk University Political Research Center.
Though nearly 80 percent of respondents said the number of immigrants entering the US was an “emergency situation” or a “major problem,” only about 36 percent of respondents said they were “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about the security of New Hampshire’s border.
Forty-four percent of respondents said they are “not at all concerned,” and 17 percent said they are “not very concerned.” Security at the northern border was more of a concern for conservatives than it was for liberals and moderates, according to the poll.
Among those who were concerned, 65 percent identified as politically conservative, while 11 percent were liberal. And among those not concerned, 87 percent identified as liberal. Among moderates, around 66 percent said they were either not very concerned or not at all concerned about northern border security.
The border has been the focus of a program championed by Republican Governor Chris Sununu, who created the $1.4 million Northern Border Alliance Task Force, which launched last fall.
The program promised to add 10,000 patrol hours at the northern border over the next year and a half, a 1,000 percent increase from current patrol levels of around 50 hours per month.
It provides training and authorizes state and local police officers to patrol within 25 miles of the border — a remote area with poor cell and radio service in some areas.
However the program has faced criticism over a lack of New Hampshire specific border encounters, data that Customs and Border Protection declined to provide.
New Hampshire’s 58-mile border is part of the 295-mile Swanton Sector, which saw a 550 percent increase in encounters from 2022 to 2023.
While border security has largely been a partisan issue among state lawmakers, New Hampshire’s Democratic congressional delegation is uniformly in favor of sending more resources to New Hampshire’s northern border to aid in securing it.
“I have for a very long time advocated that we need more resources to the northern border,” said Senator Jeanne Shaheen.
She said agents from the northern border have been pulled to the country’s southern border with Mexico and she would like to see the number of agents at the northern border increase.
Andrew Smith, the director of University of New Hampshire’s Survey Center, said this marks a shift in Democratic politics, as the party has long opposed Republican efforts to tighten immigration controls on the border.
“It’s been a big issue for a long time, more so on the Republican side,” he said. “Now, I think you’re seeing Republicans are unified on the issue and it’s Democrats who are split.”
The poll also found that former president Trump is leading the field of GOP challengers by nearly 20 percentage points in the New Hampshire Republican primary.
Additionally, it asked likely voters about how issues like abortion and inflation might affect their vote on Jan. 23, as well as whether Democrats planned to write in President Biden in the Democratic primary race.
The poll of 1,000 likely primary voters, which was taken from Jan. 3 to Jan. 7, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.