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NH-Sen: Ayotte Leads Hodes by 4

by: James L.

Wed Sep 15, 2010 at 3:43 PM EDT


PPP (pdf) (9/11-12, likely voters, 7/23-25 in parentheses):

Paul Hodes (D): 43 (42)
Kelly Ayotte (R): 47 (45)
Undecided: 9 (13)
(MoE: ±2.2%)

PPP's shift from a registered to a likely voter model doesn't change the spread significantly in New Hampshire, where Ayotte leads 2nd CD Rep. Paul Hodes by four points. Their LV model has a sample that split its vote by 47-47 between Obama and McCain (down from a 9-point Obama win in 2008, and a three-point Obama edge in PPP's last poll). Both Ayotte and Hodes begin the general election campaign equally damaged: Ayotte's favorables took at turn for the worse, at 35-47, but so have Hodesey's, which are at 35-46. Hodes has been battered by a seven-figure Chamber of Commerce ad buy, while Ayotte just barely survived a competitive primary despite her big financial advantage on movement conservative Ovide Lamontagne.

Of note is that compared to her Republican primary opponents, Ayotte isn't particularly stronger - Lamontagne and Bender both had similar leads on Hodes according to this poll, while Binnie trailed Hodes by a point. (Still, it's clear that the underfunded, more obviously conservative Lamontagne would have been the better choice for Dems, no matter the top lines of this poll.)
James L. :: NH-Sen: Ayotte Leads Hodes by 4
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NH-Sen: Ayotte Leads Hodes by 4 | 41 comments
She's bloodied from the primary
which gives this the prime time for Hodes to attack.  If he attacks her now, she gets defined before she can start pulling out Hodes' dirt and the negative ads work against her if she tries.  

On the other hand, she's been dragged down by the primary and this might be a high water mark for Hodes too.  After all, not much has been said about his record as far as I can tell, which means its even more incumbent on Hodes to seize the opportunity right now.

Some has been said about Hodes
One million dead presidents worth, per the Chamber of Commerce.
[ Parent ]
I dunno
In this environment, "Generic D" campaigns won't fly. After reading some comments about Hodes here, I looked at his and Ayotte's web sites, and I have to say Ayotte has the more exciting candidacy. He'll have to get the early jump on her like what you're saying if he has a chance of pulling this out. If he does win, it will be because he drove up her negatives.
[ Parent ]
I can agree with that
He can't let this go the way of a race of attrition because his baseline support is much lower than hers.
[ Parent ]
Now let's see how well Palin's endorsement
serves Ayotte in the general election voters. She sort of threw the "nonpartisan moderate" image out the window with that.
Hmm, not bad at all
This was always going to be a within 4 points race, IMHO.

Hodes needs to start attacking Ayotte now and often.
She is pretty underwhelming, and has tons of weaknesses.
And he should use that guitar of his to define himself now, before the PACs and assorted rabble can.

This is winnable.

21,Democrat, NY-02, male

Snowmobilers for Kelly (from her web site)
It's all pure bs, but in an environment like this, that faux-Palin branding will work.

Hodes has to focus on the nuts-and-bolts of what's bad about her and attack.

[ Parent ]
What does the money situation look like?
Ayotte must be pretty cashed out after the tough primary right? And Hodes has ran a couple ads I believe.

4 points is within reach anyways.  I suspect Ayotte will get a post primary bump though as the primary contestants all rally around her.  

I was a bit pessimistic on the previous post on this...
So I'll throw in some optimism here. I think Hodes does have a shot at this, maybe even a good one, but he really has to step up his game. Yes, he may have had $1 million worth of attacks thrown at him by the COC, but I bet Ayotte had that thrown against her by Binnie alone.

The next two weeks will be determinant, IMHO

But Hodes was dark for quite awhile during the CoC attack ads......
Hodes is a poor fundraiser and so had to hold his fire and cross his fingers he didn't bleed too much, but the fact he's down only 4 after getting creamed on the air is pretty good for him and shows some staying power.  Ayotte, in contrast, was on the air much more to counter Binnie et al.

I agree that the next couple weeks are key.  Hodes has to go hard negative and also find a way to define himself in a likeable way.

43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

[ Parent ]
I would hope that the DSCC would step up and
help Hodes, if money is a problem. They have plenty of money and this is a great pick-up opportunity for us.
[ Parent ]
I wouldn't say "plenty" of money
They and the Republican Senate Committee are pretty close in COH.  
[ Parent ]
As I said in another comment, they'll do their own poll, I bet next week, and...
...if the numbers are in the same ballpark as PPP, they'll throw down for an IE for Hodes.

It actually helps Hodes that Fisher is flailing, since that looks less attractive now.  If the party's own polling shows Hodes running this close, he's as good an investment as Conway.

43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

[ Parent ]
As much as I hate to say it
We may just need to leave Fisher for dead because not competing there saves up A LOT of money.  Effing Ohio...
[ Parent ]
Fisher was down 7
In the latest Rass poll.  Given the house effects this cycle that's a virtually identical score as being down 4 in a PPP poll.  I think it's a bit much to say Fisher is flailing when he's got just as good a shot relatively speaking as Hodes does.  Even if the polls were the same company, 4 & 7 are both within the MOE of one another anyway.

23, Male, Democrat, OH-13
[ Parent ]
Did you see the last six polls here?
CNN/Time: Portman +11
Rasmussen: Portman +8
SurveyUSA: Portman +9
Columbus Dispatch: Portman +13
PPP: Portman +7 (!)
Reuters: Portman +7

Lee Fisher last led in a poll in June. Since then, it's been downhill.

The DSCC should focus on New Hampshire, and maybe Missouri, Kentucky, and Alaska.  

28, Liberal Democrat, CA-26

[ Parent ]
Some of us here, myself including, saw Fisher's collapse coming well ahead of time......
He wasn't raising money and national Dems fretted over his campaign management, specifically that he micromanages instead of just letting staff do that.

The cash disparity over the summer, $9 million for Portman and $1 million for Fisher, told us what was coming in the months ahead, and that the polling at the time showing Fisher in a dead heat and even leading was just fool's gold.

We're now suffering the actual pain we knew was coming.

43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10

[ Parent ]
I think not Hodes is a poor fundraiser
He raised until now one million more than Ayotte (and this is a 31.6% more than her. Hodes has advantage over Ayotte at this point, while Giannoulias, Sestak, Carnaham, Crist and Meeks, Conway, Fisher, Marshall and many others are in disadvantage.

I agree he must keep the wave and go very hard negative against Ayotte, and this can be very close until the end.

Finally, the blue states will be the key for have good results in November. Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire are noe the real battleground race for senate.

[ Parent ]
now (not noe) sorry

[ Parent ]
Where are you getting that is a poor fundraiser?
He's outraised Ayotte and has more on hand.

Follow the elections in Georgia at the 2010 Georgia Race Tracker.
[ Parent ]
Let's pause and take a moment to reflect on PPP's awesomeness
They are one of the few pollsters to continually stick their necks out there and poll competitive primaries right before they happen. Let's look at their results:

NH: Ayotte, 37-30
DE: O'Donnell, 47-44
LA: Vitter, 81-5
FL: Scott, 47-40 and Meek, 51-27

Correct on all five, and relatively close on the margins. In the most recent two, they polled the weekend before and slightly underestimated the insurgent's support, probably because it didn't peak until Tuesday. Their only misstep of the primary season was Colorado, where they had McInnis and Norton winning by small amounts, which is understandable. But kudos to them for polling the tough races.

20, CD MA-03/NH-01/MA-08

Which only makes complaints
like this one from Cook Political's Dave Wasserman so strange:

If Castle wins by any kind of margin tonight, will media keep fawning over lousy @ppppolls? Sadly, yes. But let's see about tonight first...

I like the way Dave framed it -- no matter the result last night, PPP would still be lousy! Of course, he offered no explanation on what makes PPP "lousy", even in 140 characters.

[ Parent ]
That is a pretty shitty thing to say
I mean, we slag Rasmussen off all the time but there is a big difference between bloggers and somebody of Wasserman's stature. Besides, what the hell does he mean when they have such a good record? Bizarre.
[ Parent ]
You know if someone said this about Rasmussen
I'd argue it was too harsh - much less against the best pollster of this cycle. If Charlie Cook is lurking anywhere on the site, it'd be interesting to hear his explanation of this.  
[ Parent ]
Does Nate consider primary polling in his ratings?
It seems like PPP has been pretty spot on in all of these races so far, whereas Rasmussen has largely shied away from them in general.
[ Parent ]
I think he does somewhat
Or at least he has said he has pondered how to penalized pollsters who shy away from difficult polling.

Incidentally, it's not just primaries that Rasmussen doesn't poll. The MA-Senate race is another example of where they weren't in the field the weekend before the election when every other pollster of note was.  

[ Parent ]
I remember more like PA-12 or NY-23
I think not the same. The poll so well but not more.

I have a doubt, the take the likely voters model for poll the primaries? Then is not easy understand the teabagger candidates under the real vote.

[ Parent ]
sorry

I was asking if take they the likely voters model for poll the primaries. I think is interesting know this.
[ Parent ]
Ovide just conceded
And said he was going to be supporting Kelly Ayotte 100%.
That is so unlike republicans this cycle
To go out and endorse your primary rival.  Good on him I guess?

20, Male, Democrat, CA-44 (home) CA-12 (college)
[ Parent ]
If PPP is right, it doesn't matter b/c Ayotte already consolidated Republicans and conservatives......
The crosstabs show Ayotte has very few defectors among Republicans or conservatives.  So she's already consolidated the base, Lamontagne's endorsement doesn't add any value.  And still she's up only 4.

43, male, Indian-American, Democrat, VA-10
[ Parent ]
If Ayotte and Hodes are tied in favorability, edge to Ayotte
When I lived in New Hampshire over the summer, there seemed to be little enthusiasm behind Hodes. Yes, he'll get the rank-and-file Dems out, but the rank-and-file doesn't decide NH elections. Independents do, and I suspect Ayotte has a clear edge among them.

I'd peg this thing at...

Independent - 45%
GOP - 29%
Democrat - 26%

Ayotte - 54/95/10 = 55%
Hodes - 46/5/90 = 45%

For daily political commentary, visit me at http://polibeast.blogspot.com/ and http://twitter.com/polibeast

DSCC
This place is one place where some DSCC money can make a difference. Obviously they need to really think about where they are spending (none to ND, AR and IN) and allocate funds to shore up valuable incumbents in reasonably blue states in Wisconsin, Washington and Colorado. NH probably makes the most sense to target for a pickup as Ohio is an expensive market and Portman has tons of cash and Missouri/Kentucky are very tough environments. While in MO and KY we have top tier candidates going against flawed Republicans I think that the environment makes wins there a very high hurdle to climb. California and Illinois are extremely expensive and an investment there would involve a ridiculous amount of cash to throw down.

28, Male, Democrat VA-08  
I agree
This is where that 1 million that Chuck Schumer just forked over to the DSCC can do wonders.

I still remain optimistic on MO-Sen though....Blunt has many, many, flaws.  This will tighten in the end.

21,Democrat, NY-02, male

[ Parent ]
doesn't he have over $20m COH?
Could he spare a bit more change for the DSCC? This race is winnable.
[ Parent ]
I'm optimistic on this race
I have a feeling that Hodes is in a good position to win this seat.  His campaign has only recently picked up steam, plus Ayotte has her own amount of baggage.  

Anything can happen in NH.  I hope we are all pleasantly surprised when Hodes pulls it off...

40, male, Democrat, NC-04

DNC/DGA/DSCC/DCCC need a strong GOTV in NH
... it could save NH-1, NH-2 and NH-Sen and Lynch will be at the top of the ticket to assist.  

NH-Sen definitely ranks above OH, PA, MO, KY for sure. Cheap market in comparison to those.  

The race needs to be all about Palin.
  The PPP poll has 18/52 more/less likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by Sarah Palin.  Those numbers are surprisingly bad even for New Hampshire.  Obama isn't nearly that unpopular in New Hampshire.  Of course Democrats are   88-3 against Palin, but Republicans are only 34-17 for Palin.  This is the perfect fire up the base, sway the independents tack to take against Ayotte.

24, Male, GA-05
I would simply run an ad with Palin's endorsement, plain and simple
That could do the trick without anything added on.
[ Parent ]
call Ayotte "Granite Grizzly"
every time you refer to her

26, male, Dem, NJ-12
[ Parent ]
Rasmussen 51-44
NH-Sen: Ayotte Leads Hodes by 4 | 41 comments

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