Graniteprof

She's no Susan Collins

Over at The Atlantic, Marc Ambinder reports on an interesting question he asked Kelly Ayotte, one which the U. S. Senate candidate declined to answer:

Are you a Jim DeMint Republican or a Susan Collins Republican? 

Ambinder continues, "clearly there's a right answer if you're looking to get elected in New Hampshire."  He's right, but the correct bubble to fill on the Scantron sheet is

D.  Neither of the above.

Let's look at the primary first.  Ambinder is right when he writes that "conservative Republicans are dominating the primary process in New Hampshire."  But that's been true for quite some time.  Look back to the hotly contested 2002 state primaries, in which there were heated battles for the U. S. Senate and gubernatorial nominations.  In neither race (John Sununu vs. incumbent Bob Smith for the Senate; Craig Benson, Gordon Humphrey and Bruce Keough for governor) did a moderate candidate contend for the nomination.  

The Sununu vs. Smith race is especially instructive.  Sununu, the challenger to the incumbent, did not run as a moderate insurgent.  If anything, the contrast was one of tone and personality, between the coolly cerebral Sununu and the flamboyant, Buchananesque Smith (who quit the Republican Party and ran for president before returning to the GOP). 

As John DiStaso reported this past Sunday, next year's Senate primary is shaping up in similar fashion.  The two leading candidates, Ayotte and Ovide Lamontagne,  are both asserting their conservative bona fides.   Two political newcomers have taken moderate stances on social issues; until they pass the "who's that?" test, their impact is unknown.

Now to the general.  Ambinder implies that only a Susan Collins Republican can now win a general election in New Hampshire.  But in the last two election cycles, moderate Republicans (Congressmen Charlie Bass and Jeb Bradley) and conservative Republicans (Sununu) alike lost here.  Arguably, no one with an (R) next to his name could win a statewide election in New Hampshire the last two cycles.   It doesn't necessarily follow that a conservative Republican cannot win a general election in New Hampshire in the new Obama era, when economic and fiscal issues appear to be dominant once again.

Thus far Kelly Ayotte has taken conservative positions on social issues, but in a muted (one might say New England) fashion.  In doing so, she's no different than the last two successful GOP Senate candidates, John Sununu and Judd Gregg. 

2008, change or more of the same?

New Hampshire Democrats always will remember 2008 fondly as the year they outnumbered Republicans on the statewide voter registration lists.

Despite achieving that milestone, however, nothing much changed at the top of the ticket for the Democrats.  In other words, Barack Obama's relative advantage in New Hampshire was equal to John Kerry's four years earlier, in terms of partisan voting index (PVI). 

Let's take a look at the Granite State's PVI by congressional district:

First Congressional District 

2000: Al Gore won 46 percent of the vote here, 2 points lower than his national vote share.

2004: Kerry carried 48 percent of the vote, even (+ 0) with his national vote share.

2008: Obama took 53 percent of the vote, again even (+ 0) with his national performance.

Second Congressional District

2000: Gore won 48 percent, even with his national vote share.

2004: Kerry, in contrast, ran wild, walking away with 52 percent of the vote, + 4 better than his national performance.   NH 02 enabled the Massachusetts senator to flip New Hampshire into his column.

2008: Obama actually fell a little short of Kerry here.  He won NH 02 easily with 56 percent of the vote, but that was only + 3 better than his national performance.

In terms of next year's congressional races, it's worth noting that despite a comfortable victory for Carol Shea-Porter in 2008, her district remains a bellwether -- and thus a precarious place, just as her predecessor Jeb Bradley discovered, if a wave develops in favor of the opposing party.

Over in NH 02, however, the eventual Democratic nominee begins the general election race with some protection against a potential wave.  And it's the Second District that gives New Hampshire its Democratic tilt for 2012.

Where will undeclared voters land?

What's striking about the latest UNH head-to-head numbers in the New Hampshire Senate race is not the partisan breakdown -- Kelly Ayotte wins just 5 percent of the Democratic vote; Paul Hodes 8 percent of the Republican vote -- but rather, the degree to which undeclared voters appear up for grabs.

Ayotte actually leads Hodes, 38 percent to 29 percent, among undeclareds.  Compare that to two years ago, when Jeanne Shaheen led John Sununu 52-35 among these unaffiliated voters a full year before the election. 

Now, it's certainly fair to point out that Shaheen and Sununu were much better-known figures than their 2009 counterparts (never mind potential Ayotte challengers such as Ovide Lamontagne and Sean Mahoney). 

But that's just the point: An open race in a new president's first term means we have to open up old assumptions about what undeclared voters will do.  During the Bush era, we came to count on undeclared voters trending Democratic.  During the Obama era, we just don't know.   And they are four of every 10 voters.

Does that Bass still hunt?

From Ann McLane Kuster's fundraising e-mail today (italics mine). 

***

I have urgent news.

Tomorrow, Charlie Bass is filing papers to run for Congress again, just a few years after the people of New Hampshire voted him out of office for supporting George W. Bush and his Republican agenda – the very agenda that almost brought our economy to its knees, left our health care system in crisis, set us years behind on dealing with global warming, left us less secure in the world, and pressed an anti-choice ideology throughout our government.

How short does he think our memory is??

***

Another way to put this question: How long is the anger of Democratic partisans?  Granted, the well was very, very deep, as 2006 and 2008 showed.  But winning tends to purge, no?  It would be interesting to know how much of a fire this e-mail lit under potential donors.

For example, Blue Hampshire editor Dean Barker, who cut his blogging teeth against Bass back in '06, just seems disappointed this time in the former congressman's lack of ambition.  In contrast, he saves his anger for Senate Democrats who sank the public option this week:

Who needs Republicans when you have Democrats who don't deliver on the change the people voted for and continue to support? (italics mine, again)

A tip of the hat

and best wishes to Lauren Dorgan of the Concord Monitor, who is leaving her post to pursue graduate studies at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts University.  Dorgan joins a distinguished group of Monitor alumnae (and alumni) who have covered New Hampshire politics. 

2004, the true tipping point

A little more on Gallup's polling of state party ID:

According to Gallup, New Hampshire Republicans last held a clear lead in party ID in 2003.  In 2004, New Hampshire fell into the "competitive" category, with no party having a clear advantage.  The Democrats opened up a 14-point advantage in 2005, 53-39.  

As we look back on the decade, observers often point to 2006 as the tipping point in New Hampshire politics.  But perhaps it's better stated that 2006 is when the Republican side of the see-saw crashed down to earth.  The shift in public opinion that led to the crash really began in 2004, according to Gallup. 

One can make the same case in terms of New Hampshire's electoral politics.  If John Lynch and the Democrats don't succeed in unseating Craig Benson (which they did by all of 14,318 votes), is the Democratic deluge that followed two years later nearly so wide and so deep?  Could the Democrats have been so successful downticket if an incumbent Republican was running again at the top of the ballot?

Gallup: Ds up, situation normal, in NH

Gallup's latest survey of voters' party identification across the 50 states puts New Hampshire in the "solidly Democratic" category for 2009.  The polling outfit identified 53 percent of Granite State voters as Democratic or leaning Democratic, as opposed to the 34 percent who identified themselves as Republican or leaning Republican. 

A 19 percent advantage in voter ID sounds impressive, but it's not the largest lead New Hampshire Democrats have enjoyed this decade, according to a quick tour of the Gallup archives. 

In 2006, that no-good, very bad year for the NH GOP, Democrats held a 22-point advantage in voter ID, 55 percent to 33 percent.  By 2008, that margin had shrunk somewhat to 13 percent, 49-36, before widening again this year.

Inflated voter counts?

J. from Portsmouth inquires whether I have any way of accounting for "inflation" in voter registration numbers.  This inflation occurs as voters move out of town, pass away, etc., but remain on the lists until the next purge of inactive voters takes place. 

Unfortunately, the answer is no, I don't.  In theory, one could examine voter records in a town or city  and cross off inactive voters.  But not having that kind of time or person-power, my numbers come straight from the Secretary of State's website.

GOP endangered species in western New Hampshire

Last post, we took a look at counties where new Republican registered voters grew at a faster pace than their 11 percent increase statewide from 2002-2008.  As noted, the counties that drove the modest GOP gains were southern counties such as Hillsborough, Rockingham, and Strafford.

Rockingham's 17 percent growth in GOP registration, for instance, pales in comparison to the 65 percent growth in registered Democrats in that county from 2002-08. 

But Rockingham's increase doubled the rate of GOP growth in Merrimack County, where registered Republican voters only increased 9 percent in the last six years (Democrats grew by 74 percent).   Merrimack was one of four counties with only single-digit growth in GOP registration during the last six years:

• Carroll County, 6 percent increase in GOP voters (Democrats' increase: 49 percent)
• Cheshire County, 5 percent (D increase: 70 percent)
• Grafton County, 2 percent (D increase: 92 percent)

In two New Hampshire counties, the GOP actually lost registered voters from 2002-08:

• Sullivan County, -1 percent decrease in GOP voters (D increase: 55 percent)
• Coos County, - 1 percent (D increase: 41 percent)

These counties tend to be less densely populated and more rural than the counties that led GOP growth in the past half-dozen years.  And they also cluster in the Second Congressional District, which makes it all the more difficult for the GOP to recapture in next year's open-seat election.

Indeed, for all the attention showered on voters along the I-93 corridor, it's arguable that an Upper Valley Democrat living in Walpole or Claremont is the one who really sits in the driver's seat.  More on that next time. 

Rockingham leads Republican growth

As already noted, new Democrats outnumbered new Republicans in every county of New Hampshire from 2002 to 2008.  If there's any good news in these numbers for the Grand Old Party, it's that their strongest growth occurred in the two most populous counties of the Granite State:

1. In Rockingham County, where roughly 1 of 4 voters live, the number of Republicans increased 17 percent, 6 points higher than 11 percent GOP growth statewide.
2. In neighboring Strafford County, traditionally a Democratic stronghold, Republicans increased 15 percent, slightly higher than the statewide rate.
3. In Hillsborough County, home of nearly 30 percent of New Hampshire voters, growth in registered Republicans matched the statewide rate of 11 percent. 

Looking ahead to 2010, the above numbers are a modicum of good news for Republicans fighting to regain the First Congressional District seat, lost four years ago to Carol Shea-Porter.  As we will see, the drought of new Republicans is not quite as severe there as it is in the Second CD.