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Sanders, Trump Strong in All New Hampshire Communities

Welcome sign on I-95 north at the New Hampshire/Massachusetts state line.

Sometimes there are elections that are less about breaking down an electorate than watching a wave break over it. So it was in New Hampshire Tuesday night, with Sen. Bernie Sanders and businessman Donald Trump scoring big double-digit wins.

 But there is still something to learn from a closer look as the results.

The Exurbs in the south – Hillsborough, Rockingham and Merrimack. These three counties are the state’s economic engine and have evolved to become exurbs of the Boston area. They hold more than 60 percent of the state’s population.

For Republicans, they bare the marks of the establishment vote. On Tuesday night Donald Trump won big here, which raises questions about what’s next for the establishment. One big thing to keep in mind, though: The four Republican establishment candidates, if you put their votes together, won these areas and the state.

In the race for second, Ohio Gov. John Kasich led in Exurb counties.

For Democrats, Iowa’s Exurbs were good for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She won them both. But in New Hampshire, Sanders stepped up and won big. If he can win in similar locales, that would bode very well for him in the weeks ahead.

The College Towns in the east and west – Stafford and Cheshire. They aren’t prototypical college towns with big universities, but most of the 18- to 24-year-olds living in these counties are enrolled in college or graduate school.

On the Republican side, the College Towns in New Hampshire were expected to be good for the GOP’s establishment candidates, but Trump won here as well. In fact, he won younger voters overall in New Hampshire (18- to 29-year-olds) by the biggest margin of any age group.

For Democrats, Sanders owned the College Towns in Iowa and he did the same thing in New Hampshire.

Rural Middle America – Belknap, Grafton and Sullivan. This trio of counties is older than the state and, as a whole, is less diverse and much less populous.

It was expected to be good country for Donald Trump and it was. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz did not catch on here, likely because New Hampshire has far fewer evangelical voters than Iowa.

Rural Middle America went to Clinton in Iowa, but in New Hampshire it was always expected to be Sanders' territory. The state has lots of old-school New Englanders who were likely to support one of their own. And they did.

Graying America – Coos and Carroll. To the north of the state, these two counties are the oldest and least populated in New Hampshire with a combined population of 80,000. They tend to be more unpredictable than the rest of the state.

Their more iconoclastic streak likely aided Trump, who racked up huge margin here.

On the Democratic side, these counties were good territory for Sanders for the same reason those Rural Middle American counties were.

Dante Chinni is director of the American Communities Project, based at Michigan State University, a political/data reporter for The Wall Street Journal and a contributor to NBC News. He has worked with WNYC on elections analysis since 2010.