| I wonder if Steve Marchand and Katrina Swett still think it was a good idea to drop out in New Hampshire. A new ARG poll shows a dramatic turnaround in what had long been considered one of the top four pickup opportunities for Democrats:
A new poll to be released today shows Republican Sen. John Sununu has taken over the lead in next year's possible U.S. Senate race against Democratic former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen.
The American Research Group polled 558 likely voters Dec. 16-19 and found Sununu with 52 percent, Shaheen with 41 percent and 7 percent undecided. Earlier ARG polls showed Shaheen leading Sununu, most recently by 46 to 41 percent in September.
Oy. What could be causing such a dramatic turnaround in New Hampshire, where all previous polls had shown Shaheen comfortably ahead? TPM Election central spells is out:
Sununu's upsurge could be happening for any number of reasons - or this poll could just be an outlier - but there is one particular possibility: That the recent attacks from Jeanne's husband Billy, against Barack Obama's teenage drug use, might have taken a toll on her Senate campaign.
Sometimes candidates (or, in this case, spouses of candidates) will do really stupid things, and the campaign will change dramatically. This reminds me of the 2005 New York City mayor's race, in which Ferrer started out with comfortable leads. The turning point in the campaign was when, in March of 2005, Ferrer made a colossal error involving comments over Amadou Diallo. He pissed off what should have been his general election base, and came across as a flip-flopping panderer. In one fell swoop, polls moved 20 points in favor of Bloomberg overnight and a seemingly certain victory turned into a crushing defeat.
I wonder if that is what we are seeing in New Hampshire now, too. Billy's Shaheen's attacks against Obama could be doing serious damage to his wife's standing among New Hampshire Independents, among whom Obama leads. Even apart from hurting Shaheen in a key voting block, this is the sort of incident that could make her look like another crass politician by engaging in vicious, racially-tinted character attacks through a surrogate. That won't help her among anyone.
Unfortunately for Democrats, two of her three opponents in the Democratic primary, including her two best funded and most experienced opponents, have dropped out. Jay Buckey is the only candidate Shaheen still faces. Now. Buckey's chances aren't probably any better than Shaheen's, but unless this poll is an outlier, they probably aren't any worse than Shaheen's either.
Update: I should emphasize that the possibility of this poll being an outlier is pretty high. The Governor numbers look screwy, too, for example. We'll have to see what's up when the next polls come out... |
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