New Hampshire: Where Trump's race took off

New Hampshire was where Donald Trump first came top in the Republican primaries

As it began, so it ends. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump trying to cast off the chains that have dragged them down since the first primary votes 10 months ago in the snows of New Hampshire.

Back in the folds of those hills, and by the lakes with the trees in all their brilliant Fall glory and the next snows not far away, the campaign feels strangely familiar.

Clinton still trying to escape from the miasma of emails and old stories that she has not been able to expunge and Trump still hoping to persuade Americans who have thought him too egocentric and coarse to be president that he has substance after all.

In this corner of New England - a state with a population of only 1.2 million - that struggle could be decided.

Lost confidence

They are locked together, and alongside their contest is one of the half dozen races that will settle control of the Senate in Washington and therefore much of the character of the next few years.

Listening at a student rally to Bernie Sanders, who beat Clinton in the Democratic primary here, was to hear again the rallying hymn that did energise a liberal movement and which, in recent days, has seemed to lose some of its confidence.

Bernie Saunders was cheered when billionaires would pay their fare share of taxes under a Clinton presidency

He attacked big money, corporate interests, and was cheered to the echo when he said that under a Clinton administration, billionaires (guess who?) would pay their fair share of taxes.

But in the wings you could hear the worries of Democrats who thought a month ago that the campaign had a momentum that would certainly carry them home.

One confessed that it was sometimes difficult to persuade even friendly voters on the doorstep that the "Hillary stuff" was a messy mistake and not a scandal.

Hurdles for Trump

It is tough for the Clinton campaign in these last few days.

But don't imagine that because Trump has made ground in the last week, with the surprising help of the FBI director's intervention, that he is sailing happily along.

Joe McQuaid, publisher of the traditionally conservative leaning Union Leader newspaper but who is encouraging people to not to vote for Trump

In New Hampshire, his party remains split.

And even the Union Leader, a paper famous as a populist noticeboard of the Right, remains opposed to him, urging voters to opt for the libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, instead.

The publisher, Joe McQuaid, told me that Trump was certainly a force of nature, but that you had to remember that there were bad forces in nature as well as good ones.

He spoke of Trump's efforts to persuade him to come on board, when the full ego was on display and he "sucked the air out of the room", and his own refusal to join the bandwagon.

In his office, a photograph from one of Trump's visits to work on him now hangs on his bathroom door.

Dismay

These are candidates who haven't managed to escape from themselves.

Clinton still disturbs some voters who might be expected to rally to the Democrat cause without question, and Trump has shed many long-time Republicans along the way.

John Kasich, powerful governor of Ohio, announced his week that he had voted early - and written in the name of Senator John McCain on his ballot paper instead of voting for Trump.

Write any name on ballot - it counts

But perhaps, despite the spectacle of this campaign which has dismayed so many voters because of its tone, none of this is surprising.

America is a deeply divided country and the election, rather accurately, demonstrates the fact.

Take one of the great issues that lurks just under the surface - the future of the Supreme Court.

Matt Mayberry, vice-chairman of the state Republican party, wants to stop the Supreme Court becoming more liberal

Nothing divides the candidates more profoundly.

Matt Mayberry, vice-chairman of the state Republican party, told me how energised his voters were by the prospect of Clinton appointees moving the Court sharply in a liberal direction in the next four years.

They believe profoundly in stopping that, as much as they believe in Trump's message of smaller government, tougher immigration laws, lower taxes.

I heard the same point put the other way round, with equal passion, by Ray Buckley, state Democratic chairman.

Each side sees it as a defining question for the electorate and the country.

Ray Buckley, State Democratic Chairman, has an extensive collection of election memorabilia

The course set by the next appointments - made by the president and put to the Senate for approval - will have huge implications for social policy in the next generation.

More than just ritual

That's one of the reasons why this contest, which so many Americans have found tawdry and depressing, is so important.

And why the two candidates, in the next few days, are trying to find a style and tone that will persuade their doubters to put their fears aside.

Two weeks ago it looked as if Clinton had much the easier task, and it's still true that the state-by-state arithmetic of the electoral college seems to favour her.

But Trump has once again bulldozed his way through.

The passion you'll hear and feel from the candidates over the next few days is not just part of the ritual. It's real.

Their performance at the climax of this bizarre campaign will decide how many waverers turn their way, and therefore the direction of their country.