Would Sununu have won NH-SEN?

[Agafin]

Hassan ended up winning comfortably against Bolduc by 9 points, but as the gubernatorial results show, Sununu would have been a far bigger threat to her, as he won his race by 15%. It could be argued though that state elections are inherently less partisan/polarized than federal ones, so maybe she would've still won. Thoughts?

[TML]

Ask Senator Bill Weld how he beat incumbent senator John Kerry in 1996.

[Roll Roons]

Ask Senator Bill Weld how he beat incumbent senator John Kerry in 1996.

Yes, because New Hampshire is just as blue as Massachusetts.

[KaiserDave]

Confident that Hassan wins by 2-3%.

[MT Treasurer]

Quite clearly not — the state has become reliably blue at the federal level in spite of the other party's weird fixation on it. It’s basically the GOP's equivalent of FL where they come up with an excuse as to why they couldn’t win this time but definitely will win next time every single cycle.

Probably a 4- or 5-point Hassan win given the overall night it was. Republicans need a pretty substantial Republican wave to win in NH, and needless to say, 2022 wasn’t that. While it’s true that Bolduc's GE pivot on the stolen election issue was absolutely embarrassing ("I took another look and now I no longer believe that the election was stolen" actually made me laugh), it’s revisionist history to argue that his campaign was particularly poor overall or that Hassan was some strong challenger.

Look at the NH-1 result as well as the margins in WA and CO (where two "sane Republicans" ran) as a clue to how easily Sununu would have escaped effective nationalization of this race and overcome blue state partisanship. The votes weren’t there, and he was very smart to stay out of the race.

[Fancyarcher]

Absolutely not. Aside from the so-called Dobbs effect, as it turns out a state with a huge amount of college educated voters can actually be quite lethal for the GOP if you say or do the wrong thing.

Just look at Sununu's own performance this year. While he still won comfortably, he still lost some crossover support, the same support that probably would have extinguished has he decided to run for senate. If anything I think he was smart staying out.

[One Term Floridian]

Hassan would have still won and Dems would have flipped NH Gov

[smoltchanov]

Not sure. By one reason only: even while New Hampshire is much less liberal, then Massachusetts - federal elections have it's own dynamics. Voters hold in mind majority in Senate, and it would be really difficult for Democratic-leaning indies and Democrats to cross over and vote for Republican in such situation. In addition - Sununu would be under immense pressure to "hold the line" if elected, from Republican leadership, and may be - even forced to tack right to win primary over Bolduc-type candidate (after all - his first primary gubernatorial win was very narrow). It's still possible for governor to virtually ignore national party and win by itself (and "be itself" as a governor) - both JBE and Phil Scott proved that. But to be really independent of his/her party in Senate - almost impossible (times, when people like Case and Javits could do that as Republicans, and Eastland or Harry F. Byrd - as Democrats, are, alas, gone)...

[kwabbit]

Quite clearly not — the state has become reliably blue at the federal level in spite of the other party's weird fixation on it. It’s basically the GOP's equivalent of FL where they come up with an excuse as to why they couldn’t win this time but definitely will win next time every single cycle.

Probably a 4- or 5-point Hassan win given the overall night it was. Republicans need a pretty substantial Republican wave to win in NH, and needless to say, 2022 wasn’t that. While it’s true that Bolduc's GE pivot on the stolen election issue was absolutely embarrassing ("I took another look and now I no longer believe that the election was stolen" actually made me laugh), it’s revisionist history to argue that his campaign was particularly poor overall or that Hassan was some strong challenger.

Look at the NH-1 result as well as the margins in WA and CO (where two "sane Republicans" ran) as a clue to how easily Sununu would have escaped effective nationalization of this race and overcome blue state partisanship. The votes weren’t there, and he was very smart to stay out of the race.

NH was always posited as the last reasonable flip in the Senate. It's light blue and very friendly to incumbents. Sununu could've still won an open race, but would not have beaten Hassan.

Most of the thinking about where the races were in relation to each other turned out to be true. For example, Laxalt got closest, he still did better than Trump unlike Masters, Oz, and Walker. The environment wasn't there for Bolduc to win. It's not like Hassan winning easily disproved that NH is winnable; no one is saying that NH was winnable in the environment that occurred.

I do wonder how the thinking on NH would be effected if Ayotte and Trump squeaked out victories in 2016. It would definitely be seen as much more red, despite no functional difference. Same with Georgia in 2020. If Trump won and Perdue hit 50%, then we'd be talking about Warnock's probably victory in a much different manner.

[Xing]

Given the kind of night it was, no, though this is perhaps a bigger reason why many popular governors in states that aren’t typically favorable for their party are resistant to run for Senate. There’s no guarantee that they’ll win, and either way, they’ll destroy a large amount of their crossover appeal and popularity, which is obviously something they don’t want to see happen.

[CityofSinners]

Hassan would have narrowly won. Voters increasingly treat federal offices as party vote instead of a personality vote.
Sununu went from a 30 point win in 2020 to a 15 points win in 2022. Voters were clearly not happy with the GOP trifecta and that would have cost him in the senate race.

[Tekken_Guy]

If we were seeing an environment where Laxalt/Oz/Masters/Walker all win even as Bolduc loses, then I would feel more comfortable saying Sununu would have won.

In the actual environment we got I do think Hassan would have held on.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If we were seeing an environment where Laxalt/Oz/Masters/Walker all win even as Bolduc loses, then I would feel more comfortable saying Sununu would have won.

In the actual environment we got I do think Hassan would have held on.

I agree.

[Dani Rose]

Still Hassan. Maybe by half of her actual margin of victory against Bolduc, but she still takes it. New Hampshire isn't all the way gone for the GOP on the federal level, but I wager it's about one cycle away.

[Spectator]

I think Bolduc and Karoline Leavitt aren’t exactly the best baselines to use to gauge NH Congressional GOP performance. Nonetheless, the federal results were astonishingly bad for the NH GOP in light of an R+2 year. Compare this to 2016 when NH voted roughly in line with the nation, and it’s pretty clear what direction it’s been heading.

My guess is Hassan would’ve won by about 2-3%, but we’ll never know obviously. It is worth noting that Bolduc actually did a tiny bit better than the House GOP candidates. There were a few Bolduc-Pappas and Bolduc-Kuster towns scattered throughout. I can’t find any Hassan-GOP House candidate towns.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Would Ryan, DEMINGS and Beasley would win in 24 rather than 22 of course they would Sununu decided not to run because he was up 3(5 pts and if he lost his political career would be over like the above Ds, just like AOC isn't running for Senate

No, 3/5 pts wasn't the best case scenario for  him

Biden polls remain stagnet due to inflation it doesn't have anything to do with blue states but it has a lot to do with winning red states but in a Prez Eday our chances of picking up or holding red states are higher because Biden is back on ballot