Prior to 1992, New Hampshire had only strayed from the Republican Party for three presidential candidates—Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson.
In 2008, Democrats retained their majorities, governorship, and congressional seats; and former governor Jeanne Shaheen defeated incumbent Republican John E. Sununu for the U.S. Senate in a rematch of the 2002 contest.
Barack Obama won the simultaneous presidential election and carried every New Hampshire county for the Democrats for the first time since 1852.
[citation needed] The 2008 elections resulted in women holding 13 of the 24 seats in the New Hampshire Senate, a first for any legislative body in the United States.
In the 2010 midterm elections, New Hampshire voted out both of its Democratic members in the House of Representatives in favor of Republicans.
Two years later, in the 2012 elections, New Hampshire voted out both of its Republican members in the House of Representatives in favor of Democrats.
[8] However, the state narrowly went to Democrat Hillary Clinton over Republican Donald Trump in that year's presidential election.
Meanwhile, Democratic governor Maggie Hassan defeated incumbent Republican Kelly Ayotte to join Senator Jeanne Shaheen and Representatives Carol Shea-Porter and Ann McLane Kuster to make the entire congressional delegation represented by the Democratic party for the first time since 1854.
In the 2018 midterm elections, both chambers of the state legislature returned to Democratic control, while Sununu was reelected as governor, resulting in divided government.
While New Hampshire Democrats retained their seats in the 2020 federal elections, Republicans regained the majority in the state's Senate, House of Representatives, and Executive Council.