Republican Kelly Ayotte, who had the support of her party, won the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate by approximately 1 percentage point over Tea Party-supported Ovide Lamontagne, a Manchester attorney who spent only $400,000 on his campaign, as opposed to Ayotte's $2 million.
The closeness of the race between Ayotte and Lamontagne indicated that Republicans in New Hampshire are more fragmented than originally thought, The New York Times reported.
Ayotte was one of few Republican Party establishment-supported congressional candidates to win against a Tea Party candidate in the primary, according to The Times. While Ayotte had been perceived as the more moderate candidate at the beginning of her campaign, she developed a more conservative image and gained the endorsement of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who named her a "Granite Grizzly" and made automated phone calls for her in the weeks leading to the primary election.
Tea Party-backed Lamontagne was endorsed by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and won straw polls at several Tea Party events, according to The Times.
Predictions from Public Policy Polling released on Sept. 15 indicated that Ayotte will likely beat Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes '72 in the general election by a five-point margin. Hodes ran unopposed in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary. Ayotte is expected to receive 83 percent of Republican votes, as opposed to Hodes' 85 percent of the state's Democratic votes.
In New Hampshire's gubernatorial race, Democratic incumbent Gov. John Lynch will likely win in the general election despite gains in Republican popularity in the state, according a Sept. 21 post on Five Thirty Eight, The Times' political blog.
If Lynch is able to secure a majority vote in the general election against Republican candidate John Stephen in November, he will be the first New Hampshire governor to serve four consecutive two-year terms.
While Lynch won New Hampshire's Democratic nomination by a large margin, there are concerns about voters' satisfaction in his performance, Dartmouth government professor Linda Fowler said in an interview with WCAX News.
"His popularity has suffered because of the recession and the imbalance of the budget and so forth, so he is going to have to campaign hard this year," Fowler said.
Stephen vowed to cut state spending during his campaign and emphasized that Lynch's mismanagement caused the state's budget deficit. Seventy-six percent of voters who believe that the economy is worsening support Stephen, according to a Sept. 18 poll by Rasmussen Reports.
An average of 100,000 simulations project that, across the nation, 19.6 Democrats will win governorships on Nov. 2 and 30.1 Republicans will win governorships, according to Five Thirty Eight.
Ann McLane Kuster '78, the Democratic nominee for New Hampshire's 2nd congressional district, was backed in the primary by progressive organizations including the League of Conservation Voters, Democracy for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which considered hers to be one of the most important primary elections in the nation, Politico reported.
In an unprecedented move, three pro-choice organizations EMILY's List, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and NARAL Pro-Choice launched a unified campaign to raise money for Kuster, according to Politico.
