Polling from after this week’s primaries in New Hampshire, where Republican contender Don Bolduc won his party’s primary race to take on incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) in the latter’s push for re-election, shows the GOP candidate down by 11 percent.
That large and leading margin for Hassan is despite confidence recently expressed by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, about party prospects in the state. “We’re going to win,” Scott insisted to The Daily Beast. “[Hassan] has spent 7 or 9 million bucks and she’s still in the low 40s in approval? That’s a pretty good pickup.” And yet, Bolduc is substantially trailing Hassan. In the new survey from Emerson College/WHDH, Hassan nabbed 51 percent of the overall support, while Bolduc had 40 percent. Four percent of respondents named someone else, and six percent were undecided. Hassan is leading among independents, men, and women in the new polling, suggesting the lead is well-grounded to the point it will prove difficult to shake for the poorly funded Bolduc campaign.
Hassan was up by 12 percent with independents in the new poll. Although a significant portion (20 percent) of respondents indicated they hadn’t heard of Bolduc or were unsure about him when asked their opinions of the candidates, Hassan’s overall level of favorability is 10 percent higher than the GOP candidate. In the Emerson numbers, 51 percent indicated a favorable view of the incumbent Democrat, and 41 percent shared a similar view about Bolduc. A full 44 percent of respondents shared an unfavorable view of Hassan, while Bolduc’s unfavorability was at 39 percent. The polling also found that Hassan has the support of almost all of those who say that access to abortion is the most important issue for their November vote. She had a full 93 percent of those voters.
FiveThirtyEight’s “deluxe” forecast rates the New Hampshire Senate race as “likely D,” meaning a likely Democratic win. Decision Desk HQ rates the race the same way, while the Cook Political Report puts it at “lean D.” (All of these forecasts were current as of early Sunday.) Overall, Democrats are generally favored to hold onto control of the Senate.
