Chris Ryan sat down with two experts to preview the election. First, Wayne Lesperance, a Political Science Professor at New England College, gave his analysis of recent polls taken by NEC and the University of New Hampshire.
No one will be surprised to hear that the senatorial and gubernatorial races are still too close to call. Both polls have similar results with only a .5% or 1% difference between Shaheen and Brown. In the race for governor, there are some differences. The UNH poll has it dead even, but the NEC poll has Maggie Hassan up by 8 points over challenger, Walt Havenstein. However, trends show that the gap has narrowed between these two candidates.
They also analyzed the second district congressional race of Marilinda Garcia versus Ann Kuster. At this point, the Democrat Kuster is comfortably ahead with 53%.
When asked who won the day on the campaign trail yesterday, Chris and Prof. Lesperance discussed the trends. the democrats had Hillary Clinton campaigning for Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan. Republican Scott Brown spent the day visiting with Patriots fans and ended the day with a rally. Both groups fired up their base group of supporters. However, with the races so close and only 56% of eligible voters expected to go to the polls, the elections will be decided by which party can get out the vote. At the moment, many voters are voting against unpopular policies of the Obama administration or Congress. Professor Lesperance has dubbed this the “Rejection Election.”
Professor Dante Scala also weighed in what is shaping up to be an historic election. He teaches Political Science at the University of New Hampshire.
With the senate race too close to call at this point, it’s hard to assess whether Brown or Shaheen have done enough at the finish to seal the deal. Professor Scala sees this election as a collision between the local and the national We probably won’t know what the key factors were in the election until actual results can be evaluated. The town of Bow and Merrimack County are two places that will have their results assessed by this political scientist. He is curious to see how many Brown-Kuster voters there will be, especially among women voters. Did Marilinda Garcia’s views on abortion cause them to split their votes.
Scala predicts that Shaheen will squeak out a victory. If the Democrats do weather this storm, it will be a testament to their organization and fund raising–especially, in light of the national anti-democrat and anti-incumbent climate. Professor Scala gave high marks for the campaigns of Republican Walt Havenstein in his bid to unseat Governor Maggie Hassan and the campaign run by Democrat incumbent Representative Ann Kuster.
This election is very important. All elections are important. So, that’s why I am disagreeing with one of my heroes, Mark Twain.
Your vote matters. In a democracy you get the government you deserve.
