Rate NH Sen Hassan vs Sununu Now

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Let's be fr here ppl, Sununu would be the mild favorite.

[ChiefFireWaterMike]

Tilt Sununu, honestly, we don't know the 2020 environment well enough yet, so that's wild, and while Sununu is popular, this is still New Hampshire, and beats to it's own drummer.

[KaiserDave]

Tilt Sununu, no more. I could see an argument for Tilt Hassan.

[TML]

Based on current polls, lean Sununu.

However, he still has great potential to fall victim to partisanship.

[SnowLabrador]

Based on current polls, lean Sununu.

However, he still has great potential to fall victim to partisanship.

[BudgieForce]

Tilt Hassan and i'll tell you why:

In the last 20 years, no Republican/Democratic Governor has won a senate seat in their opposite party leaning state.

Hassan has middling job approval numbers and she's only down low to mid single digits against an incumbent governor with a +30 approval rating. Sununu's numbers will come down in a competitive race and the democrats supporting him will probably come home.

I'm not saying Sununu doesn't have a chance. The midterm environment and Hassan being uninspiring help Sununu. But at the end of the day, I think Hassan has enough going for her to win.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Tilt Hassan and i'll tell you why:

In the last 20 years, no Republican/Democratic Governor has won a senate seat in their opposite party leaning state.

Hassan has middling job approval numbers and she's only down low to mid single digits against an incumbent governor with a +30 approval rating. Sununu's numbers will come down in a competitive race and the democrats supporting him will probably come home.

I'm not saying Sununu doesn't have a chance. The midterm environment and Hassan being uninspiring help Sununu. But at the end of the day, I think Hassan has enough going for her to win.

Your rating, argument, and reasoning isn't all that ridiculous, but the part I bolded is kinda dumb, because patterns like that are broken all the time in politics.

[Real Texan Politics]

Tilt/lean Sununu. This is easily the most likely republican pickup as long as Sununu is the GOP nominee.

[BudgieForce]

Tilt Hassan and i'll tell you why:

In the last 20 years, no Republican/Democratic Governor has won a senate seat in their opposite party leaning state.

Hassan has middling job approval numbers and she's only down low to mid single digits against an incumbent governor with a +30 approval rating. Sununu's numbers will come down in a competitive race and the democrats supporting him will probably come home.

I'm not saying Sununu doesn't have a chance. The midterm environment and Hassan being uninspiring help Sununu. But at the end of the day, I think Hassan has enough going for her to win.

Your rating, argument, and reasoning isn't all that ridiculous, but the part I bolded is kinda dumb, because patterns like that are broken all the time in politics.

True, but it's an interesting bit of trivia all the same. Bayh, Bullock, Stickland, Kerrey, Gilmore and Lingle all tried to fight partisanship and flip their states senate seats and all of them lost.
Sununu is obviously in a unique position since New Hampshire isn't sapphire blue and he's the popular incumbent but partisanship shouldn't be overlooked in a race like this.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

I’d also point out that Sununu is very much an establishment republican and no moderate and being elected governor is a very different election with very different factors then a gubernatorial. Gubernatorials tend to be more unpredictable and subject to regional issues. Sununu hasn’t run for federal office and while it’s an environment that’s potentially favorable to him I think people are greatly over estimating his chances. This far out with 0 campaign hypothetical polls like this are not remotely indicative of his actual chances. All these considered I think Hassan is favored as she has experience running for federal office, is an incumbent, and (so far) hasn’t done anything to illicit a groundswell of support for her ouster

[Coolface Sock #42069]

This early on, the fundamentals are more predictive than the polling. The fundamentals, which are a Democratic president, a state that hasn’t sent a Republican to the Senate in 11 years, and a popular Republican governor as a candidate. These collectively point to Lean D if you ask me. Senate elections are just more partisan than gubernatorial ones.

[SWE]

In the last 20 years, no Republican/Democratic Governor has won a senate seat in their opposite party leaning state.

Joe Manchin

[AGA]

Lean Sununu

[BudgieForce]

In the last 20 years, no Republican/Democratic Governor has won a senate seat in their opposite party leaning state.

Joe Manchin

I was tempted to note that but West Virginia is quite a unique case. The cracks were certainty there but democrats were still the dominant party in West Virginia in 2010 and 2012.

Edit: Even in 2012, it would have been hard to call democrats the "opposite party" in West Virginia. Tomblin and Manchin had just won re-election, the state senate and assembly were both still majority democrat. All the major state offices were held by democrats. 

[AndyHogan14]

In the last 20 years, no Republican/Democratic Governor has won a senate seat in their opposite party leaning state.

Joe Manchin

West Virginia was still pretty Democratic down ballot at that point. Manchin was governor, WV had two Democratic senators, every row office was held by Democrats, Democrats held both houses of the state legislature, and up until 2010, Democrats held two of the three House seats (it went to 2-1 R in the same election in which Manchin won his Senate seat). Most people at the time knew it was inevitably going to be one, but I wouldn't call West Virginia in 2010 a "Republican state" just yet.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Tilt R, but only if he runs for Senate. He might run for governor instead as that would be a much easier race to win than senate.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

It's still Lean D, Shaheen will campaign for Hassan and is a Giant in NH politics

That's why Hassan barely beat Ayotte, voters associate Hassan with Shaheen

[MillennialModerate]

Hassan is not very popular for one and Sununu is.

Lean R (closer to Likely R)

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Hassan is not very popular for one and Sununu is.

Lean R (closer to Likely R)

He still can lose, Generic ballot is D plus 8 impossible for Hassan to lose in NH with that sort of kead

[😥]

Tilt Sununu

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

C'mon, you don't thin Maggie Hassan is gonna lose, 21 mnths lrgt



53/47 Senate with D's plus 8 on GB

[MillennialModerate]

C'mon, you don't thin Maggie Hassan is gonna lose, 21 mnths lrgt



53/47 Senate with D's plus 8 on GB

Omg. Stop LOL. You’re embarrassing yourself. 53/47? ZERO CHANCE.

[Oregon Eagle Politics]

Lean R, but if Sununu doesn't run, Likely D.

[Oregon Eagle Politics]

In the last 20 years, no Republican/Democratic Governor has won a senate seat in their opposite party leaning state.

Joe Manchin

Eh, WV was arguably a D leaning state in 2010.

[MT Treasurer]

Tilt R, closer to Lean R than Tossup (and I could see this moving to Lean R very quickly). I like how some people think that Sununu will be the only one who’s going to be hit by a barrage of negative ads if he runs when Hassan is going to cast the deciding vote on every single item on Biden's agenda.

I’ve said this before, but she has absolutely nothing other than the state's D lean at the federal level going in her favor, and I don’t think that lean is strong enough to save her in a poor environment against an opponent who’s very much able to execute the right messaging against her/skilled at cultivating a favorable brand/capable of setting the overall tone/narrative of the campaign. It will require some Manchin-esque performance art, but hey, Democrats don’t have a monopoly on that.