Last month, Paul Senatus moved from Quincy, Massachusetts, to Manchester, New Hampshire, and began the process of registering to vote.
The 29-year-old says he moved to save money, and while he’s here, he’s making sure his voice is heard, as a black man and a voter in one of the country’s first Democratic election contests.
“If everybody like me isn’t doing our duty, we can’t make a change,” Senatus said. “My advice to anyone that is my age, anyone that is African-American, is to keep yourself informed and educated. Otherwise, what happened four years ago is going to keep happening, and I don't think that's really good for the country.”
Senatus commutes the one hour drive back to his job at a biotech company. By registering to vote in New Hampshire, Senatus represents a very small minority in a very white state: By the last U.S. census count, New Hampshire is 90 percent white and 1.7 percent black.
In the short time that he’s lived here, Senatus says he can already feel the whiteness. “I have been in more uncomfortable situations here more than I was in Massachusetts,” he said. “I don’t know, I feel like the world is changing, but at the same time, I feel like I need to get involved.”
By moving, Senatus is also joining a new wave that’s making up a significant demographic change in the state. According to a University of New Hampshire study released Tuesday, two-thirds of state residents age 25 or older weren’t born in the state, and “considerable turnover” is happening as younger voters and more voters of color are landing in the Granite State.
Ken Johnson, UNH’s senior demographer and an author of the report, tells WGBH News that about 20 percent of the people who will be eligible to vote in Tuesday’s primary election either weren’t living in New Hampshire or were too young to vote in 2016. And, there has also been a substantial increase in the number of people who have moved into the state from other parts of the United States, particularly Massachusetts, he added.
“The new voters, the younger voters and the voters who've moved into New Hampshire from other states, both tend to be somewhat more liberal and somewhat less conservative than the population who was here in 2016 and is still eligible to vote in 2020,” Johnson said.
The study predicts that voting trends will shift in this primary, based on an estimated 200,000 people who have moved to New Hampshire since 2016.
Johnson also estimates that new voters who have turned eighteen will have an impact as well, in addition to mortality rates. Since 2016, approximately 46,000 voting-age residents have died in New Hampshire, and a majority of them were older. “Older voters in New Hampshire tend to be more conservative,” Johnson said. “So the demographic changes that are going on in New Hampshire have changed the characteristics of the voting population.”
Sheunesu Moyo hopes that’s true. As a black man living in Manchester, he says he struggles to feel represented in both national and local elections.
“I’m unhappy with my alderman, and I've tried several times to vote him out,” Moyo tells me, bouncing his four-year-old daughter, Tandiwe, on his hip at a Market Basket in Manchester. “But the demographic is mainly made up of white, older people. They're the ones who vote for him and keep putting him back in every single time.”
As more immigrants and young people move into Massachusetts, Moyo says he hopes that current residents can take the initiative to teach the newcomers about becoming politically active.
“I think the biggest challenge really is people being politicized,” he said. “You know, there needs to be more getting out there and letting the minorities, the mixed races, the diverse populations know that you can go out and vote and you can make a change.”
