Free Republic

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ongoing tease of a presidential run didn’t exactly pull in the crowds during a campaign-esque event in the Granite State. Only 20 people showed up Sunday to hear the leader of America’s largest city hold a roundtable on mental health — including the 14 people on the panel and just six in the audience. There were also about six reporters on hand to make the room at the Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center look a bit less empty.

Meanwhile, in the Republican presidential race, Donald Trump now holds a seven-point lead in Iowa and a 16-point one in New Hampshire. In the Hawkeye State, Trump gets the support from 29 percent of potential GOP caucus-goers, while Ben Carson receives 22 percent. There's a steep drop off after that: Jeb Bush gets 6 percent; Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul and Scott Walker get 5 percent; and Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal are at 4 percent. In July, Walker was ahead of the Iowa Republican field at 19 percent, Trump was second at 17 percent and Bush was third...

Current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump maintains a strong lead in New Hampshire, while establishment pick Jeb Bush has steadily lost support in the early-voting Granite State, says the new NBC News/Marist poll. Trump is 16 percentage points ahead of his closest competitor, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and has 28 percent of likely Republican voters backing him.Dr. Ben Carson came in third place with 11 percent of the vote, while Bush dropped to fourth place at eight percent.

HOPKINTON, N.H. -- On a scorching summer afternoon, it is dark and cool inside Blaser's Fireside Tavern , and the regulars are making the most of their last days of bar-side nicotine freedom. In September, a law banning smoking in bars and restaurants will take effect, and customers at this neighborhood haunt will have to adjust. As Bruce Henriksen sees it, this is just the latest bit of nonsense to emerge from the New Hampshire State House. "It's like the government stepping in on a church and telling them what they can preach or what they can't preach," said the...

KEENE, Jan. 24 -- In diners, taverns and student centers across the state yesterday, few minds were changed by Thursday night’s Democratic debate in Manchester . Some voters were still undecided, and those who weren’t only felt more certain about their candidate. Many who watched were skeptical about the debate’s format, and a few were disinclined to participate at all in Tuesday’s primary. “Very blah,” said Ted Tivnan of Manchester . “The substance wasn’t there.” While Sen. Joe Lieberman was making his pitch to a health care forum next door at the Palace Theatre, Tivnan, 55, sat inside the Stage...