New Hampshire apparently tries to hard in Presidential years to have its primaries first, that it tires and has to have its Senate primaries last. So we’re still on primary watch for that state, and it looks like the Republican race has shifted again.
Kelly Ayotte still leads the primary race to decide Democrat Paul Hodes’s opponent, but it appears the race for second is wide open now.
Before the big news was that Bill Binnie, from the left wing of the Republican Party, had surged and become the clear second place opponent to Ayotte. But according to Magellan Strategies, he’s back in third, with Ovide Lamontagne, self-described true conservative of the race, back in second: Ayotte 34, Lamontagne 21, Binnie 17, and Jim Bender brings up the rear at 13 (MoE 3.3).
Binnie’s unfavorables are way up now, and he’s at -24 net with a 30 favorable/54 unfavorable rating now. Meanwhile Ayotte rides high with +20 for 54/34, and the lesser known Lamontagne also sits at +20 38/18.
What I find most interesting is that Republicans and Independents support Bender and Lamontagne by the same amounts, but Binnie takes 10 points from Ayotte when looking at the likely Independent voters in the primary, nearly making the race a tie in that subset.
It’s clear, then, that independents may still approve of Bill Binnie, but Republicans increasingly do not, and Republicans seeking an alternative to Ayotte are turning to Ovide Lamontagne instead. That said, it’s still Kelly Ayotte’s show right now.
House of Representatives Swingometer
Electoral College Swingometer
Most would-be politicians start out at lower levels. That’s not good enough for Do-you-know-who-I-am Binnie, a political first timer. He believes he can, by virtue of his money and his ability to self-finance, leap over others and take New Hampshire’s top elected federal position. Not a town office in Rye, not one in the NH House, not one in the NH Senate, not as a NH state constitutional officer, not even a seat in the US House, but only the top spot is good enough for him. When others start out at lower levels, this actually helps the voters as they are able to make assessments of the character of the candidate to see if the person has earned the voters’ trust to higher office. Voter assessment would be based on prior actual political job performance, demeanor, maturity, and general overall interactions dealing with constituents in doing the knitty-gritty work of solving real world problems in their lives, as well as learning the difficult ropes about legislating. In short, there would be an open record which the voters could point to. Binnie has no political experience.
Well, we certainly have learned about Binnie’s character with last several weeks. And what he’s shown is not very good. He censors critical remarks from his Facebook page, employs thuggish tactics against his imagined “enemies,” believes the voters have no need to know of his long-standing liberal positions which he went to great lengths to hide, and then was angry (displaying his well-known temper) when others pointed these things out to the voters.
Whew, this was a close call.