NH-Gov 2024: If You Knew Sununu Like I Knew Sununu

[Oryxslayer]

Big pickup opportunity for Dems. Ayotte is really the only person Republicans have left in New Hampshire that can compete statewide. If Dems pick this one up, they might be entering a wilderness period.

Given how the Executive Council and State Senate district maps are gerrymandered as much as the states partisanship will allow, the NH GOP losing everything would be a hard albeit not impossible occurrence.

- The State House may flip in a few weeks via special election. But the reality is that unwieldy chambers functioning won't dramatically change until 2024 gives someone more than a 1 seat majority.

- The Gov seat is now open and competitive.

- Senate and executive council likely require the current partisan gerrymandering case Brown v. Scanlan before the NH Supreme Court (argued on State Constitutional grounds similar to recent cases in NC/WI/PA/KS/NM/UT) to rule in favor of the plaintiffs. Given the state's partisanship and geography, any normal map will have more Biden seats on both than necessary to flip the chamber.

If this does not occur, the state would require a system shock similar to the NY Senate in 2018 to lurches local partisanship in line with national, something that I doubt can occur in a presidential year.

[Oryxslayer]

NEW HAMPSHIRE POLL EMERSON

2024 Gubernatorial Election

Kelly Ayotte (R) 46%  
Joyce Craig (D) 37%  
17% undecided

Kelly Ayotte (R) 47%  
Cinde Warmington (D) 34%
19% undecided

I am personally skeptical about these this far out, but I figured I'd make sure to put these in here.

So clearly Ayotte is benefitting from strong name recognition at this point. I had expected more undecided this far out, and I'm still thinking she will probably see her support decline as the primary goes on and she has to answer questions about Trump, but it is possible she can find a path through even with that issue in the background.

So this poll points to out-of-office Ayotte receiving a huge slice of ticket-splitters in 2024, when in 2016, as an incumbent and with the same top of ticket, she ran ahead of Trump by just 0.6%?

There's something fishy here.

Nothing should be surprising when the election is a year away, and she has stellar name recognition from the time in the Senate, whereas the other two may only be known best in their district. A quiet race needs time to reach a boil.

[Oryxslayer]

From what I can tell, MA/NH is not PA/NJ. These people do not care about MA like that.

I mean Ayotte's campaign focus would probably be a legitimate strategy and an ideal one if the Democratic candidate was carpetbagging from Massachusetts. It would go beyond just simple partisan bogey-manning to the actual question that usually drags on carpetbaggers: do you know your supposed constituents? That's why Fetterman's and seemingly Casey's strategy worked/works.