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My Take on the 2010 NH Races

By: SE-779 (Diary)  |  January 21st, 2010 at 07:07 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Here’s a rundown of how I think the NH races will go:

Governor: Incumbent Democratic Governor John Lynch is running for re-election. The Democrats have unified behind Lynch. On the GOP side, Businessman Jack Kimball and Religious Right Activist and Author Karen Testerman are in the running. I expect Kimball to prevail 63-37 and lose by a lesser than expected margin(59-41) to Lynch. DEM HOLD.

US Senate: Incumbent GOP US Senator Judd Gregg is retiring. On the GOP side, former State Representative Tom Alciere, former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, Businessmen Jim Bender and Bill Binnie, and former State Board of Education Chair Ovide LaMontage are in the running. The Democrats have unified behind US Representative Paul Hodes. The Libertarians have unified behind Realtor Ken Blevens. I expect LaMontage to teabag Ayotte to death in the Primary and defeat Hodes 51-47. GOP HOLD.

NH-01: Incumbent Democratic Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter is running for re-election. The Democrats have unified behind Shea-Porter. On the GOP side, Defense Contractor Rich Ashooh, Businessman and Economist Peter Bearce, International Banking Executive Bob Bestani, Cook Mike Castaldo, Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta, and Kevin Rondeau are in the running. I expect Guinta to handily defeat the rest of the field and prevail over Shea-Porter 53-47. GOP GAIN.

NH-02: Incumbent Democratic Congressman Paul Hodes is running for US Senate. On the Democratic side, State Representative John DeJoie, Attorney Ann McLane Kuster, and Political Consultant Katrina Swett are in the running. On the GOP side, former Congressman Charlie Bass, former State Representative Bob Giuda, Bristol Town Budget Committee Chairman Andrew Hemingway, Radio Talk Show Host Jennifer Horn, and Milford School Board Member Len Mannino are in the running. The Libertarians have unified behind Howie Wilson. I expect DeJoie and Bass to emerge from their Primaries. I predict Bass over DeJoie 50-48. GOP GAIN.

COMMENTS

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  • morstar150

    Where do you get your information on who is going to win. Why not Ayotte?

    • http://conservativestateproject.blogspot.com/ SE-779

      Based on an instinct I get just by looking at the race and the candidates. Ayotte hasn’t really shown herself to the public, and I think that is going to hurt her in the Primary.

      • discerningconservative

        I used to live in Concord, NH, and I have many friends there that tell me that she is generating quite a bit of excitement.

        • Swamp_Yankee

          You can check out her blog roll.

          • discerningconservative

            tell me that she is becoming pretty popular among the conservative base in southern NH. I know that the northern part of the state is more conservative than the south, but the population is much larger in the south. From what I hear she has a pretty good shot at winning.

          • http://conservativestateproject.blogspot.com/ SE-779

            She has no fighting chance of winning this whole thing, and it’s possible she may prove me wrong, I’m just saying that I believe LaMontage is more effective at getting his message across and is more appealing to the grassroots.

          • discerningconservative

            I haven’t lived there for about 3 years, so I really don’t have my finger on the pulse of the state. I was just asking what public you thought she wasn’t getting her message out to. I speak to friends up there regularly, and have been told that her popularity has been rising steadily. None of them have mentioned LaMontagne, nor have I asked.

        • http://conservativestateproject.blogspot.com/ SE-779

          Let me apologize for the comment. I recieved some bad information on her exposure to the public. Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s done good things as AG, but somehow, LaMontage comes out as more Conservative, effective at getting the message out to people, and appealing to the grassroots movement.

          • Swamp_Yankee

            Ovide will run to the right of her and he will get knee-jerk support from many conservatives, especially out of staters, who dont the landscape. But NH is small. Kelly is popular. Kelly is a little more cautious, since she has been a prosecutor her whole life, she’s not a rah rah person. Ovide is a flamethrower. But he lost by 15 points in 1994 Cong primary. Then lost by 17 to Shaheeh. in 1996. Disappeared and now is coming back to play the spoiler. He is trailing Hodes by seven, while Kelly is beating Hodes by nine. Ovide is more red meat, but Kelly is steady and competent and conservative in the NH mold. There are a couple local dynamics that are tough to pick up from a distance.

          • irishrebel2000

            Dear Swamp_ Yankee:

            As Ronald Reagan used to say:

            There you go again….

            You fail to mention Ovide Lamontagne won the 1996 NH Republican Primary for governor over a sitting RHINO Congressman that the Washington establishment backed in the primary.

            The fact is Lamontagne has won a statewide primary election. Ayotte has never run for office.

            It is true Lamontagne lost to Shaheen in the general election but if you were in NH in 1996 you would have to agree the state was in love with the idea of having the first woman NH governor and it did not make much difference what she said.

            This time people are dealing with the worst economy since the depression, a health system that needs repair and a coherent response to terrorism that has reached our own country.

            I think people want something more than Washington power brokers telling us we need to vote for an Olympia Snowe clone so they can control her vote once she gets there.

            Lamontagne is a real NH conservative in the Ronald Reagan tradition and he actually can talk about any of these issues in substantive ways without resorting to sound bites provided by Washington political advisors…

          • discerningconservative

            you may be right. Of course, being more conservative isn’t necessarily going to be beneficial in NH. A lot of southern NH is people from Mass. that have migrated north to take advantage of the no income/sales tax.

            According to Rasmussen , Ayotte well outperforms both LaMontagne and Binnie against Hodes.

          • irishrebel2000

            The ARG poll has both Lamontagne and Ayotte beating Hodes.

            http://www.americanresearchgroup.com/nhpoll/senate10/

          • irishrebel2000

            I have alot of friends in the high tech field that left Massataxus for a reason and I doubt that they came here because they want NH to adopt Massachusetts liberal values.

            In fact , they remind me of Eastern Europeans who marveled at the freedom in Western Europe.

            They have suffered too much from liberal ideas to endorse them all over again.

      • zbigreddogz

        that Kelly Ayotte is going to lose the primary. She MIGHT lose if there was a united opposition candidate, but split several ways, she’ll win easily.

        There is no reason to think she isn’t a decent, center-right conservative in the Gregg mold and I think she’ll win both the primary and the general.

        • irishrebel2000

          I guess if you keep saying something over and over again then you actually start to believe it …

          She already has changed her position on health care reform

          http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091209/FRONTPAGE/912090302&Template=printart

          She has made some very ambiguous statements on whether she would support programs that provide federal funding for abortions as a federal mandate

          http://www.paulhodesforsenate.com/latest_news/details/2009-12-concord-monitor-hodes-ayotte-spar-over-health-care

          She is flip flopping on where she stands on the federal stimulus spending plan

          http://www.nhinsider.com/press-releases/2009/11/18/dscc-kelly-ayotte-on-stimulus-she-was-for-it-before-she-was.html

          Further, it appears that she is totally beholden to Washington Republicans instead of New Hampshire voters and instead of saving Republican funds to use in the general election against Paul Hodes, they are raising funds to prop up Ayotte

          http://www.politico.com/blogs/scorecard/0709/NRSC_fundraising_for_Ayotte.html

          I doubt anyone in the nation appreciates Washington lobbyists and power brokers picking primary winners in state elections.
          The Washington power brokers have already cost the Republican party the 23rd Congressional seat in New York State. If they did not back a Rhino, a Democrat would not be sitting in the seat..

          http://usconservatives.about.com/od/katyabramcommentary/a/Abram-3-New-York-23rd.htm

          At the present time, it seems Ayotte will stand behind a wall of Washington money and power brokers and hope that nobody bothers to check behind the curtain and see who is really running the show….

          Her biggest problem is NH primary voters are too sophisticated to vote for a candidate simply because Washington Republicans wants a Olympia Snowe clone they can control…

  • IJB

    And I think he will – career politicians, especially ones like Bass, aren’t playing well right now.

    • http://conservativestateproject.blogspot.com/ SE-779

      Is the better choice for NH-02?

      • IJB

        …And haven’t lived in the area for over 15 years now, so I’m not current.

        But, from what little I know, I imagine either Bob Guida or Jennifer Horn would be (vastly?) preferable to Bass.

        Bass was one of the only GOP reps that I was actually glad to see gone over the past two cycles. I sure don’t want to see him back in Congress…

        • zbigreddogz

          She lost in a landslide in ’08. It’s one thing to lose in a bad year, it’s another thing to lose by more then 15pts.

          • IJB

            I think there is very little that can be taken away from that 2008 race:

            1) It was her first time running
            2) She was running against a (relatively entrenched) Incumbent

            Neither of those things apply this year.

            If she’s learned from her 2008 mistakes, she could certainly win an open seat. Others have pretty much gone from blow-out 1st time losses to 2nd time wins (starting with Bill Clinton…) – it’s certainly not unprecedented.

          • proudgop

            Grew up in New England region and realize NH 10 years ago is not current NH ( although win by Brown is huge in NH I believe)

            Has the Governor seen his popularity decline at all?

            I like Kelly vote Senate Race; I mean Rasmussen released poll last week which showed her at 49% already and she has never run for statewide office. I do like seeing more woman in Republican caucus too

            thanks for your info by way I appreciate it

          • zbigreddogz

            He’s referring to Jennifer Horn.

          • zbigreddogz

            It was his first term.

            She’s also a talk radio host from what I understand, they don’t do well in general.

            Before you point out Franken, he kinda won in the best year for D’s since ’74 and STILL only got 42% of the vote.

          • IJB