The chairman of the Belknap County Republicans said that the county has begun to become more Democratic, but argued that Republicans can still be competitive in the county.

"You can't argue against the numbers, but I'm not ready to say it's shifted blue. I think our message needs to be articulated better," Frank Tilton told PolitickerNH.com last week in an interview.

After this past election cycle, 12 of the 18 state representative seats will be filled by Republicans. However, in November, President-elect Barack Obama carried the county by 394 votes and U.S. Sen.-elect Jeanne Shaheen (D-Madbury) beat U.S. Sen. John Sununu (R-Waterville Valley) by 282 votes. In 2004, President George W. Bush defeated U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) by 3,840 votes in the county and Sununu beat Shaheen by 3,893 votes in 2002.

Also in November, state Sen. Kathy Sgambati (D-Tilton) won re-election to a second term by 2,046 votes. In 2006, Sgambati defeated incumbent state Sen. Jim Fitzgerald (R-Laconia) by only 733 votes.

Given these trends showing the county slowly shifting towards the Democrats, Tilton said the Belknap County Republicans will spend the next year reaching out to new voters.

"We need to continue to get out the vote, we need to recruit candidates, we need to reach out to new people," Tilton said. "We can't sit around and wait for elections."

Tilton added, "We can't leave it to the Democrats to tell people what Republicans stand for."

Belknap County is located in central New Hampshire and includes Laconia, Tilton and Alton.