his parents worked in New Hampshire.

Sanders, who was raised in Brooklyn and has lived in Vermont since the 1960s, uses his local Vermont roots on the campaign trail in the Granite State. While campaigning in the state last weekend, he noted that three of his grandchildren live in Claremont, N.H. He also explained that when it came to gun control laws, New Hampshire and Vermont have shared rural traditions.

How much Sanders will be able to draw on the cultural overlap will be tested in the months before the February presidential primary.

“Politically, the first thing you need to know is that Vermont is not New Hampshire, period,” University of Vermont political science professor Garrison Nelson said. “There are people elected in New Hampshire that would never see the lightof day in Vermont and vice versa.”

Still, Nelson noted that Vermont does share a media market with much of western New Hampshire, and that helps with Sanders’ name recognition.


There is also a shared culture of town hall meetings, and most decisions are made on the local level — not at their small state capitals. The pair are the only states in the nation with two-year terms for governor. They rank first and second as the least religious states in the country. Politicians from both political parties tout their environmental credentials. And economically, both states are heavily reliant on tourism.

Sanders is hardly the first person from New England who was able to spend a lot of time running for president in New Hampshire. So did Massachusetts presidential candidates John