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| N.H. Democrats fight to maintain dominance |
| 2010-07-06 |
| After two election cycles in which they swept the Republicans, New Hampshire Democrats are leaning into a gale-force political headwind this fall. Only Governor John H. Lynch, seeking an unprecedented fourth two-year term, has decent poll numbers at this point and even those are down quite a bit from consistently stratospheric highs of the recent past. As they try to regain their historic dominance in the state, Republicans are forming in packs to run for the top offices: Four will vie to face Lynch in November; seven are running for the open US Senate seat of Judd Gregg, who is retiring; eight will compete in one of the state's two congressional districts; and five are running for the other seat. "My sense is that Republicans have a very good chance of taking the Senate seat, both congressional districts, as well as control of the Legislature, and Lynch may be the one Democrat who can make it through this Republican wave,'' said Andrew E. Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, which conducts the Granite State poll for WMUR-TV and also polls for The Boston Globe. Democrats now control all but the Senate seat of Gregg, a Republican. Lynch, who will face two little-known Democrats in the primary, avoided traditional campaign activity until the state closed the books last week on a rocky fiscal year. Chronic revenue shortfalls, compounded by some high-profile budgetary mistakes by Lynch and the Democratic Legislature, required significant cuts in state spending. His administration announced on Thursday that the state ended the year with a small surplus, a rare glimmer of good financial news during a long, brutal recession. His reelection prospects are also complicated by personnel upheavals -- his Liquor Commission chairman and banking commissioner are facing removal proceedings by the Executive Council. Mark Bodi, a Lynch friend and fund-raiser, is accused of interfering with a Liquor Commission enforcement action at a tavern. Peter Hildreth is under fire for alleged ethical lapses in his response to the largest Ponzi scheme in New Hampshire history. The scandal has rocked the state and spilled over into the race for the open US Senate seat, to the dismay of Lynch. In April, he accepted some of the responsibility for the failures of three state agencies, two in the executive branch, to act on complaints before the scheme wiped out many investors in November. Republicans sense an opening against a governor whose job approval rating peaked at 80 percent in one Smith poll, didn't fall below 70 percent until a year ago, and was at 56 percent in April, amid a carpet-bombing of television attack ads by a national group critical of Lynch for reversing his stand and signing gay marriage into law in New Hampshire. Lynch was reelected with 70 percent of the vote in 2006 and a record 74 percent two years ago. |
| Posted by:Fred |