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NEWFIELDS, N.H. — A new poll in New Hampshire, home to the only competitive gubernatorial election this year, indicates a close race in the battle to succeed popular Republican Gov. Chris Sununu.
And the results of the survey and another poll released in the Granite State earlier in the week suggest former President Trump’s standing in New Hampshire in the White House race may be a drag on down-ballot Republicans.
According to a University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll released Thursday, Democratic gubernatorial nominee and former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig holds a razor-thin 47%-46% edge over former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the Republican nominee.
A poll released earlier this week from the Saint Anselm College Survey Center also indicated a coin-flip race, with Ayotte holding a slight edge.
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Former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the Republican gubernatorial nominee in New Hampshire, speaks with voters at the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival Sept. 7, 2024. (Kelly Ayotte campaign)
Ayotte, thanks to her six years in the Senate and her tenure as a state attorney general before her service on Capitol Hill, has far greater name identification than Craig and has a sizable campaign cash advantage over her rival.
But the new polls suggest Trump may be doing Ayotte no favors.
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“Kelly’s very popular, but I do think Trump’s a burden,” longtime Granite State-based GOP consultant and former state attorney general Tom Rath told Fox News.
Trump came within roughly 3,000 votes of carrying New Hampshire in his 2016 presidential election victory. But four years ago, President Biden topped Trump by over seven points in New Hampshire.
Former President Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, delivers remarks alongside supporters, campaign staff and family members during his primary night rally at the Sheraton Jan. 23, 2024, in Nashua, N.H. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The UNH poll indicates Trump is down by 11 points to Vice President Kamala Harris. And the Saint Anselm College survey points to an upper single-digit lead for Harris in New Hampshire.
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“If this were a straight-up election without the presidential race on it, I think Kelly would have a lead outside the margin of error,” argued Rath, who stayed unaffiliated in the 2024 Republican presidential primary race and served as a top adviser to Trump rival and then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich in the 2016 GOP nomination battle.
A New Hampshire-based Republican strategist told Fox News “Trump is definitely an anchor on Kelly and her campaign right now, and she’s the flagship.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, arrives to speak during a campaign stop at the Throwback Brewery in North Hampton, N.H., Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
The strategist, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, noted that Ayotte’s “status as a flagship means everybody’s taking shots at her. There’s not a lot of evidence of activity in New Hampshire by the Trump campaign, so it’s really Kelly versus the world right now.”
And another Granite State-based Republican consultant also pointed to meager involvement and resources in New Hampshire coming from some top national Republican groups.
“Kelly’s out fighting this thing all by herself. That’s not a good place to be. You need other people drawing fire,” said the consultant, who also asked for anonymity. “[Trump’s] not focusing on New Hampshire. His bad poll numbers and lack of enthusiasm is dragging the whole ticket down.”
Craig, who served three two-year terms steering the Granite State’s largest city, narrowly topped Cinde Warmington, the only Democrat on the state’s five-member Executive Council, to capture their party’s nomination in last week’s state primary.
Ayotte, a former state attorney general before winning election to the Senate in 2010, soundly defeated former New Hampshire Senate President Chuck Morse to win the GOP gubernatorial nomination.
Sununu, who decided against running for re-election this year after winning four straight two-year terms as New Hampshire governor (New Hampshire and neighboring Vermont are the only states in the nation that elect governors every two years), didn’t appear to be affected by Trump’s upper single digit defeat in New Hampshire four years ago.
Sununu ended up winning re-election in a landslide in 2020, thanks in part to Granite Staters’ tradition of ticket splitting.
The governor endorsed Ayotte earlier this summer as she ran for the nomination. Ayotte has repeatedly praised Sununu and pledged to further his agenda if elected in November.
Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire is interviewed by Fox News Digital July 11, 2024, in Newfields, N.H. (Fox News/Paul Steinhauser)
Ayotte was a rising star in the Republican Party in 2016 with a burgeoning profile on national security as she was running for re-election.
But just ahead of the 2016 election, she withdrew her support for Trump over the “Access Hollywood” controversy, when Trump made crude comments about grabbing women without their consent.
“I cannot and will not support a candidate for president who brags about degrading and assaulting women,” Ayotte said at the time.
Ayotte lost re-election by a razor-thin margin of just over 1,000 votes to then-Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan.
Ayotte stayed neutral in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary, but she endorsed Trump in early March, right after he clinched the GOP nomination.
Rath, pointing to Ayotte’s backing of Trump, said “her position, which was to embrace him and not create space, I understand why she’s made it, and you take the consequences of it … if that’s the top of the ticket, and you’re the next level down, it’s really hard to get around that problem in a race.”
Also working against Ayotte is an avalanche of negative ads that have been running against her all summer, courtesy of Democratic groups.
The attacks have helped to raise Ayotte’s negative ratings in both the UNH Survey Center and Saint Anselm College polls.
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire.
