[[Another factor that has really affected Maine, NH and VT since covid is the amount of people from other states that have moved to rural areas of New England]]
Good point- they moved here or vacationed there when their onerous states locked them all down- they ook off for other states where they weren’t so oppressed... it happened tO our town too. Back dur8ng the rush on stores for toilet paper of all things, people were driving up from the cities and cleaning out local stores- then thins quieted down, and now we see a lot of out of towers have moved here or have summer homes here now, and their liberal policies are beginning to take over-
and they won’t be happy until they turn our co servative areas liberal- then when their own policies start affecting them, they will complain and move to other great small communities and start all over again
They leave a wake of destruction behind everywhere they go! Trump was right... everything liberals touch turns to $&>รท !
This has happened to the central part of NH lakes region over the last thirty years. NH tax burden is primarily on property taxes. So, the most expensive real estate pays the largest percentage of taxes. This directly affects the lake front towns and lake front houses.
Many of these houses are owned by retirees and out of state people. Their kids are either all grown up or go to school in MA or other locations.
Yet, they pay huge real estate taxes on their lake front properties.
These rich liberals eventually retire to their house on the big lake. Next thing they want is an income tax to lower their tax burden and shift it to working people.
This attitude has made the lakes region of NH become more liberal over the last thirty plus years. Only rich people can afford these very expensive lake front houses now. Many of them are multiple millions now. A lot of these owners come from MA, CT, even NYC. They became rich while living primarily in out of state liberal locations.