Neither Frank Guinta nor Charlie Bass have approval numbers that are setting the world on fire in their New Hampshire Congressional districts, but Bass appears to be in much worse shape for winning another term next year.
Only 29% of voters in Bass' district approve of the job he's doing to 48% who disapprove. His numbers are bad with Democrats and independents but what really plunges them is how weak he is even with Republicans. Just 48% give him good marks to 26% who think he's doing a poor job. Those are the kinds of numbers that can make you vulnerable even in a primary. Last year Bass narrowly won the primary with less than 50% of the vote in a 5 candidate field. It would be interesting to see the outcome in a two person race.
Assuming Bass is again the Republican nominee he would find himself in a tight race with his 2010 opponent, Ann McLane Kuster. A rematch between the two would basically start as a tie with Bass edging Kuster 43-42. The reason Bass leads Kuster despite his horrid approval numbers is that even though only 48% of GOP voters are happy with the job he's doing, 80% would still choose him over a Democratic alternative. This was one of the closest House races in the country last year and it could well be again in 2012.
In the 1st District Frank Guinta has narrowly positive approval numbers. 39% of voters are happy with him while 38% dissent. Republicans approve and Democrats disapprove of him in similar numbers. What puts him over the top is a pretty decent 43/35 breakdown with independents.
Guinta leads a rematch with the former holder of the seat, Carol Shea-Porter, 48-41. He wins independents by 19 points in such a scenario. In one sense these numbers represent an improvement for Shea-Porter since she lost reelection by 12 points last year. Still there's an argument Democrats might want to go in a different direction if they want to reclaim this seat. Shea-Porter has poor favorability numbers with only 40% of voters viewing her positively to 48% with a negative opinion. And her 36/53 spread with independents is even worse than the overall number. A fresher candidate could have a better chance at returning the seat to the Democratic column.
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8 comments:
Carol Shea-Porter has negative favorables in the district because she intentionally sought to sandbag Guinta's constituent services.
http://redracinghorses.com/diary/39/political-roundup-for-january-27-2011
Regardless of my political affiliation, this would be a major strike against a candidate.
This is actually a vulnerable seat for us. But if it's CSP against Guinta, I think Guinta will win easily.
Thanks you for polling the CDs here. I know it takes a lot of extra work and I appreciate it.
They voted for Charlie Bass because they knew his name, but forgot what a lously job he did before. Unless a very strong Republican opposes him we will again lose D-2 in NH.
Guinta wasn't my candidate but he's doing a "decent" job so far as holding the line against raising our debt limit...and that was the only thing I asked him to do in Congress. I did mention a few other things, but nothing as critical as managing our debt so that this president does not have any opportunity to sink America deeper into a hole.
That claim about poor constituent services is a huge lie. Shea-Porter was known and admired for her excellent constituent services to seniors, veterans, military members, and others. In contrast Guinta actually reduced service by closing one of the two district offices (which provide such services), offices that had been there as long as anyone can remember ( I live in NH1).
BTW I tried to follow that link but it was dead and I couldn't make it work.
The link is fine. Cut and paste it into your browser.
Also, your decision to call me a liar was made in haste, since we both know you didn't read the link.
It's not that CSP had poor constituent services herself; it's that she intentionally sandbagged Guinta's efforts during the transition between Congressmembers. She was willing to let her constituents suffer in order to stick it to Guinta, and I'm not surprised someone who did that would have an unfavorable rating in the district.
That's hardly news. Slightly above the level of the Republican-created lie about 'W' keys being missing from keyboards. For one thing, the only source for the claim is Guinta, who already has his own ethical issues to contend with, and whose political strategy is slime, slime, and slime some more. Guinta simply launched a preemptive attack for the potential 2012 rematch on one of the pettiest imaginable topics.
Even if you're foolish enough to take Guinta's word, there's still no 'there' there. It's the same thing that Jeb Bradley did when he left office, and the same thing that John Sununu did when he was beaten by Jeanne Shaheen, and the same thing Benson did when he was beaten by John Lynch. Shea-Porter, Shaheen and Lynch had the class to not smear their defeated opponent publicly for clearing out their office and not going out of the way to help the new officeholder get started.
This is absolutely not true. As is standard practice for closing Congressional offices, all of the former Congresswoman's constituent casework was transferred by the Congresswoman's staff to Senator Shaheen's office. Congresswoman Shea-Porter's Director of Constituent Services had previously worked for former Congressman Jeb Bradley and other Republican members. She understood and had participated in the process before. There was no casework left behind.
Anonymous 8:54 -- That sounds like a very inside account of what happened. Thank you for posting that, and I hope it's true.
In any event, I think maybe both of our sides want CSP to be the nominee, so let's leave it there.
So now we again have someone posting a lie about a lie. Frank Guinta apparently lied in an interview about the office transition, although I would bet it was a shock to him to find out that there was actual work involved in being a congressman, instead of just collecting campaign donations from...well, we still don't know where some of that money came from...and being courted by presidential wanna-be's. And now his supporters are repeating his lies. Typical.
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