Repub­li­cans eye lib­er­al bas­tion with polls say­ing Gran­ite State is brit­tle for Democ­rats

Repub­li­cans haven’t won New Hamp­shire in a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in decades. How­ev­er, as Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s dis­as­trous debate per­for­mance rocked the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, polit­i­cal strate­gists say there’s an open­ing for for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump to flip the state this Novem­ber. 
Polit­i­cal sci­ence experts are point­ing to two polls indi­cat­ing Biden has cause for con­cern in a state that typ­i­cal­ly has Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates’ backs. 
A poll con­duct­ed after the debate by New Hampshire’s Saint Anselm Col­lege Sur­vey Cen­ter shows Trump lead­ing Biden by 2 points in the Gran­ite State.  
Last week’s poll fol­lows a a late May sur­vey con­duct­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Hamp­shire Sur­vey Cen­ter, which gave Biden only a sin­gle-dig­it edge. 
That’s a drop from 2020 when Biden hand­i­ly won New Hamp­shire with a 7% lead. 
“I do think we are now in a bat­tle­ground,” Neil Levesque, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the New Hamp­shire Insti­tu …