Will New Hampshire decide who wins the Senate in 2022?
Photo credit: Tim Pierce
By: Joseph Brusgard, Staff
Date: January 24th
Voting is a sacred duty in the great state of New Hampshire, and independence is a way of life. Every Presidential primary, voters line out the door in precincts across the Granite State. Technically, they have to register with a party to make their voice heard in the primaries, but New Hampshirites are so committed to their independence that they will wait first to register with a party, second to cast their vote, and third to switch their party registration back to independent.
Look no further than 2020 to see how little New Hampshirites are bound by party. In the very same election, voters supported President Biden by 7% more than Trump and re-elected Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen by 16%, while also voting for a Republican State House, State Senate, and another term for Republican Governor Chris Sununu by a 30% margin. That's a remarkable commitment to split-ticket voting in an era where partisanship is the dominant feature of our political system. Candidate quality is king in the Granite State, and the unique dynamics of each individual race matter more than the national political environment.
New Hampshire voters could easily decide the fate of the Senate in 2022. Republicans need just one more Senate seat to claim the Majority, and Senator Maggie Hassan (D) is one of their top four targets. Given the maverick nature of the state, New Hampshirites could break with the rest of the country. That gives Hassan hope of surviving a cycle that could end up being a strong one for the GOP - but the reverse is easily possible. If it’s a disappointing year for Republicans, don’t rule out a win in the Senate through a surprise flip of NH, combined with a narrow victory in Pennsylvania to hold off Democrats from taking a seat of their own.
Senator Maggie Hassan has only been in Washington for six years, but the last election was far from her first foray into politics, and New Hampshirites have come to know her well. She was first elected as a state Senator in 2004 and rose to become the Senate Majority Leader of the body. She lost re-election in a tough 2010 cycle for New Hampshire Democrats. However, she came roaring back two years later, winning the governorship and then successfully defending it against the backdrop of a Republican national blowout in 2014. She challenged incumbent Kelly Ayotte for Senator in 2016 and won in the narrowest contest of the year by just 1,017 votes.
Republicans chances of winning New Hampshire dropped by almost 15% the day Chris Sununu decided not to run. If he was the nominee, Republicans would have been favored to flip the seat in our Senate forecast.
As a Senator, Maggie Hassan hasn’t developed a national following like Raphael Warnock, but she has built strong relationships with voters, and in a small and elastic state, having close ties is an invaluable asset. Dan O’Neil, a longtime Democratic alderman for the city of Manchester, first elected in 1997, noted that Hassan built a strong relationship with several key groups through her work in the Senate.
“She has a great reputation with the veteran's community,” O’Neil said. “She has worked really hard on veterans’ services at the VA and done a lot of work with the business community as well. I think those things with the veterans, and the jobs, economy and the business community, I think are going to pay off”. Hassan has also proved to be an effective fundraiser, entering the new year with $5.3 million on hand, which in a small state like New Hampshire, will go far.
However, 2022 will be a tough fight in 2022. Recent polls show that Hassan has lost some ground, and her favorability has fallen to 40% in our polling average. O’Neil was skeptical that those polls were accurate – and to be fair, they are outliers compared to previous polling. He does worry that she has been hurt by national politics. “I think, unfortunately, she’s caught up in these crazy times where if you’re a member of congress, people want to put you in the same box”.
Democrats are the ruling party, so the risk of backlash is dangerous for Hassan, especially if she isn’t seen as independent enough. New Hampshire hasn’t always been kind to incumbents. Two have lost re-election and one lost re-nomination, all in the last two decades. But 2021 did provide some encouraging signs for Democrats, who had an incredible run of luck at the local level, especially in comparison to their poor performances in New Jersey and Virginia. First, Democrats flipped a state house seat in the ancestral Republican town of Bedford. It is town that went from a strong Romney victory to a narrow Trump win to a decent Biden win, which has set off alarm bells in the state GOP. Then, on a disappointing national election night, Democrats flipped a number of municipal seats throughout the state. Republicans have had their share of wins, including taking back O’Neil’s seat, but the victories Democrats have racked up this year show that a loss next year isn’t inevitable. New Hampshire is a highly educated state and the shifts in towns like Bedford may be emulated nationwide. If the GOP veers too far right or fails to nominate a strong candidate, they could lose.
That’s a risk the Republican party is keenly aware of, and it’s no coincidence that their top recruit for the 2022 cycle was Governor Chris Sununu. His candidacy could have been formidable. The Sununu's are the most powerful political dynasty in New Hampshire politics, and Chris won his last election by more than 30%. He led Hassan in the polls by 6%, and our very own Senate forecast assessed that if Sununu became the nominee, he would have a well over 60% chance of beating Hassan. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair, Senator Rick Scott rolled out the red carpet for Sununu. On a trip to New Hampshire last August, Scott told reporters, "I think he will because he’s a patriot. He knows the problems of this country and I think he’s going to run.”
Governor Chris Sununu (R) on local radio.
Photo Credit: Rich Girard (Wikipedia Commons)
However, their hopes were dashed in Concord, when Sununu announced he would seek another term as Governor. "My responsibility is not to the gridlock and politics of Washington," Sununu said. "It's to the citizens of New Hampshire."
The next candidate on the GOP’s wish list was former Senator Kelly Ayotte, who lost to Hassan in the historically tight 2016 election, and would’ve faced a rematch under different circumstances. But hours after Sununu announced he wasn’t running, Ayotte followed suit. Former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, now a New Hampshire resident, also ruled out a run to support his wife’s run for congress.
A few weeks ago, the only major candidate that had decided to run was General Donald Bolduc. Bolduc has run before, falling short for the 2020 Republican senate nomination. He had won the endorsements from Michael Flynn, Tom Cotton, and received praise from Donald Trump. Bolduc also embraced false conspiracy theories about the election being rigged for Joe Biden. While this may not sound out of the ordinary for Republican candidates in most states, it’s a risky political tactic in a state like New Hampshire. In the same year that Republicans lost the Presidential election by over 7%, they were able to win the State House and Senate by establishing a distinct brand from the former President. If Bolduc is the nominee, he may exacerbate the GOP’s existing problems with educated and suburban voters.
Bolduc has also made some jarring political choices that are making Republican insiders concerned. In a recent radio interview, he claimed Chris Sununu “was in business with Saudi Arabian companies that give money to terrorists”. He also bragged about scaring him out of the race and called Sununu a “Chinese Communist sympathizer”. Considering the usual tack of GOP candidates to decry their Democratic opponents as communist or socialist, such an attack will be undermined when Hassan can point to Bolduc’s claims about the popular and decidedly non-communist GOP Governor.
Photo Credit: Marc Nozell from Merrimack, New Hampshire,
Bolduc is currently trailing Hassan in our polling average by 6%, and our forecast gives him only a 25% chance of winning if he is the nominee. It’s no surprise that the GOP is scrambling to encourage other candidates to run. The big question is, who else will run? One person trying to find that person is 2020 senate nominee Bryant “Corky” Messner, who arranged a meeting with GOP candidates to avoid a divisive primary and to coalesce against Bolduc.
In recent weeks, the GOP has made some headway. State Senate President Chuck Morse decided to enter the race in late January. Having received calls from Ayotte and Brown and even an NRSC staffer, he is arguably the establishment choice. Most voters still don't know enough about Morse to form an opinion. He will have to successfully define his brand to win the nomination. On the one hand, he portrays himself as an acolyte of Chris Sununu, but he’s also made statements attacking issues like Critical Race Theory.
In addition to Morse, Londonderry Town Manager Kevin Smith also decided to enter the race. It's his second try at winning statewide office, after making an unsuccessful bid for Governor in 2012. A recent poll from the University of New Hampshire showed Maggie Hassan leading Boldoc, Morse, Smith by wide margins, but that’s at least partly due to her edge in name recognition.
Other candidates that have been encouraged to run are Sununu’s education secretary, Frank Edelblut, and media executive Bill Binnie. Ironically, the GOP could end up now with an alternative problem - too many candidates. If the field can’t unify and Bolduc gets the nomination, this will sharply reduce the GOP’s odds of winning the general election. They have plenty of time for the field to sort itself out, as the state’s primary isn’t until September, one of the last in the nation.
Despite her strengths as a candidate, Hassan is vulnerable, and in a state where candidate quality can mean everything, the right Republican would have a reasonable shot at flipping this seat. However, in part due to Sununu’s decision, our forecast calls Hassan the favorite, and her chances have risen to 68%. There is still plenty of time for fundamentals to change, but Democrats look far stronger in New Hampshire than they did a few months ago.
