When we last checked in on the Senate race in New Hampshire, Republican Scott Brown was down for the count. Now it looks like he’s getting up off the mat.
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By July, incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen had been leading in the polls for months, usually by double digits. But last week the new WMUR/University of New Hampshire poll showed Shaheen’s lead narrowing to only two points.
It’s generally a mistake to draw too broad a conclusion from only one poll. But this one may be worth taking seriously.
Sean Trende of RealClearPolitics argues that “there are good reasons to suspect that the movement in the polls reflects actual movement of the electorate” — specifically, movement among Republicans, not all of whom were initially enthusiastic about Brown, a moderate who only arrived in New Hampshire after losing the senate seat he’d held in Massachusetts:
Remember, when Brown entered the race, there was some resistance to his candidacy within the party. This shows up in the first WMUR/UNH poll from January, which found that Brown’s favorability among Republicans was a tepid 46/23 (+23), and that his lead among the group over Shaheen was 66 percent to 11 percent (+55).
Today, Brown’s favorability among Republicans is 63/15 (+48) and his lead over Shaheen among Republicans is 81 percent to 10 percent (+71), nearly matching the rate at which Democrats prefer Shaheen to Brown (85 percent to 12 percent). This suggests that the movement we see in the topline could also reasonably be viewed as a combination of two factors: First, a natural, inevitable tightening as Republicans “tune in” in advance of the primary and “come home,” and second, an increased Republican population making it through the likely voter screen, as Republican intensity increases in advance of the primary.
Trende concludes that while the poll may just be statistical noise, “the fact that there is a logical, expected explanation for the movement should temper that conclusion, and perhaps move us to treat this poll with less skepticism than we otherwise would.”
The other reason to think that the race may in fact be tightening is that, as Politico’s James Hohmann reported last week, insiders in New Hampshire believe that it is:
A dozen New Hampshire operatives from both parties, granted anonymity to discuss the state of play candidly, agree that Shaheen remains the clear front-runner. The consensus among the Granite State political class is that the WMUR poll, which generated a flurry of national coverage, is too bullish on Brown’s current standing.
But the race has shifted toward Brown, observers said, and the former senator from neighboring Massachusetts could win if 2014 becomes a GOP wave election.
Hohmann’s sources concur with the Republicans-coming-home theory that Trende lays out, arguing that Brown has benefited from the immigration issue and Shaheen’s association with the increasingly unpopular President Obama.
Hohmann cites a GOP internal pollster who showed Shaheen’s lead over Brown dropping from 11 points in July to 5 points in mid-August, suggesting that the WMUR/UNH poll is at least correct about the direction of the race.
And even if the polls are overstating the movement in the race, sometimes polls can generate momentum on their own, particularly through the effect on fundraising. With the race looking this competitive, donors and outside groups aren’t going to abandon Brown.
As Republican operative tells Hohmann, the race “probably still favors Shaheen 55-45, in terms of her odds to win, but he can close that gap with the amount of money he’s going to get.”
All that means that this race is back on the radar. Shaheen still has the edge, but New Hampshire now moves from likely Democrat back to leans Democrat.