John Lynch is certainly going to face his toughest contest for reelection since first being elected Governor in New Hampshire, but he still starts out the general election with a solid 51-39 lead over Republican challenger John Stephen.
Lynch was dominant in his 2006 and 2008 wins, receiving large amounts of Republican support and crushing his opponents with independents. Neither of those things will happen this year. Stephen has the GOP base pretty much locked up, 74-13. And Lynch's edge with independents has been reduced to 46-41. Still Lynch wins Democrats 93-4, a larger degree of party unification than we've seen for any candidate in the country this year, and that's more than enough to fuel a double digit lead.
Lynch has a 51% approval rating, making him one of a very small group of Governors and Senators PPP has polled this year who have retained majority support from their constituents. A plurality of voters at 39% still don't know enough about Stephen to have formed an opinion. Among those who have views are pretty evenly divided with 31% seeing him favorably and 30% unfavorably.
In a political year that has produced one surprise after another after another it would be a mistake to completely write off the possibility of an upset. But Lynch's popularity is holding up much better than that of most politicians and if that continues to be true for another 7 weeks he should make it through.
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Stephen runs 8 points behind Ayotte presently. Assuming Ayotte wins around 55-45, Stephen would lose 47-53 (2-party share).
Independents and Republicans are key; Stephen needs to turn around 3 points of support overall, mostly from those two groups.
(Spare me the blather about the senate race being competitive from the people who thought Elaine Marshall could get close to Burr.)
I'm not sure how you're doing your math, but if the undecideds break proportionately, Lynch would win 57-43, not 53-47. Ayotte would win 52-48, not 55-45.
"(Spare me the blather about the senate race being competitive from the people who thought Elaine Marshall could get close to Burr.)"
Did I miss the election?
She's been persistently down, but only by 5 last month. We'll see what we find in September, but I can guarantee SurveyUSA and Rasmussen are way off.
Dustin, you're basing that strictly on one company's pre-primary poll from last weekend.
I hope you will agree that the general election is unlikely to be held last weekend - and that undecideds will not simply break proportionally in a Republican wave.
55-45 is an educated estimate of the likely Ayotte-Hodes election day outcome. The assessment is, of course, debatable.
Rasmussen provides the first post-primary look:
Lynch 48, Stephen 46
But I'm sure Lynch will win by 14, right?
Rasmussen also claimed that John Sununu had suddenly vaulted ten points after the Republican primary in 2008 and was leading Jeanne Shaheen - literally the only pollster the entire race to show Sununu ahead. Then he lost by ten. Rasmussen also gave Rand Paul a twenty-four point lead immediately after the Kentucky primary, then backed it down to single digits a week later. Rasmussen has a terrible record when polling right after primaries.
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