CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – Delaware Sen. Joe Biden said the questions he’s getting from voters in New Hampshire and elsewhere suggest they’re worried about the future.

“I’ve never seen the electorate so sober, not somber, not angry, but sober,” the Democratic presidential hopeful said in a phone interview Saturday. “By sober I mean they understand we’ve been dug in a really deep hole, and they want to know how you’re going to get out of it.”

Questions typically focus on national security, foreign policy, health care, jobs and energy, he said. Gone are the days when voters asked him about his position on abortion, affirmative action or constitutional amendments relating to marriage, he said. “I’m not suggesting they’re not important but I haven’t gotten one question about any of those issues in over 100 stops I’ve made in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina,” Biden said.

Biden said the mood of the country crystallized for him when an Iowa woman recently asked him: “Senator, I have one question. Are we going to be all right?”

“That’s what I mean by sober,” he added.

Biden said he’s in the state this weekend and Monday to promote local Democrats and is not talking much about his own presidential aspirations. He promised he’d be back on his own account soon.

But he predicted this fall’s elections will be seminal and that voters are shifting away from a conservative philosophy that rejects a role for government.

“I think Katrina lay bare the argument that government was useless. Because we figured out corporations don’t rebuild levies; free enterprise doesn’t restore wetlands; wealthy people don’t rebuild cities,” he said.

And if all goes well in November’s elections, he said, “I hope the Republicans fall as the leaves do.”