The firewall for New Hampshire Democrats

In private conversation I keep referring to the state of the New Hampshire Congressional polling as a possible Republican sweep, as Charlie Bass, Frank Guinta, and Kelly Ayotte are all in good shape to win in November.

However a sweep in New Hampshire technically should require a win in the Governor’s race, but the polling has favored Democrat John Lynch over Republican John Stephen, including this new WMUR/UNH poll.

Of course, the poll is better for Lynch than other polling has been. UNH has Lynch 51-Stephen 34 (MoE 4.5), which is actually an 8 point swing in Stephen’s favor from the 54-29 in July. But it’s still a much larger lead than Rasmuseen’s Lynch +2 or ARG’s Lynch +2, all three polls taken in September.

Even PPP only shows Lynch 51 – Stephen 39, 5 more points swung in Stephen’s favor from UNH. So I think it’s very likely that Lynch is ahead, given that Stephen has never led in a poll. But the UNH result is probably a very best case scenario for Lynch right now, and the race is likely to be more competitive than that.