Monday, November 3, 2014

Brown Will More Likely Win NH (Than Tillis in NC)

This analysis is the strangest one I can offer before the voting tomorrow.

North Carolina Speaker of the House Thom Tillis finished impressively against his primary challengers for the Republican nomination against Democratic incumbent US Senator Kay Hagan.

Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina)
Republicans had swept the state legislature and the Congressional seats in 2012, along with the governor's mansion (the first GOP governor in NC in twenty years). The bold agenda out of Raleigh set off voters, however, including hits to public education.

Voters have registered their discontent so far, and their upset with Washington has not been as strong as their frustration with their state party leaders.

Tillis has not polled above Hagan in poll after poll. Some outliers have given the Republican challenger better odds, one or two points above, but never outside the margin of error. Unlike Arkansas, the conservative state going from blue to red, North Carolina still dabbles in dark purple hues. Hagan will likely pull of another term.

In contrast, New Hampshire has gone from red to blue, the last New England state for a Republican President candidate to win since 2000 (George W. Bush). The state once had two Republican Senators, conservative all around, and especially on the fiscal issues.

New Hampshire has trended blue since 2008, when Jeanne Shaheen unseated conservative superstart John Sununu (the son of same-named former Governor and Romney surrogate). The two house seats fell to Democrats, as well. Then in 2010, both seats when red with the GOP shellacking. Then come 2012, and the Democrats took back the seats again.

Now in 2014, and the national whiplash may push out Democrats again. One house seat is in play, and incumbent Shaheen has quarantined herself from President Obama (although she is proud of voting with his agenda 99% of the time).

Scott Brown

Former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown relocated to challenge Shaheen and get another seat in Washington. He was behind by double-digits for the first few months. With the illegal immigrant youth crisis, the international threats of ISSI (plus the imploding American foreign policy in the Middle East), compounded by the Ebola threats, and Brown has gone from double-digits down to bringing it all around. Recent polls have the two candidate running neck-and-neck, while one recent poll put Brown ahead of Shaheen, but still within the margin of error.

The New Hampshire rest has steadily turned around in the Republicans' favor, and the incumbent Democrat has gotten so nervous, she interrupted him during a debate (getting boos from the liberal audience), followed by hollow "war on women" smears which fell flat.

With the statistic rates changing (or staying the same) over the last four months, one can accurate argue that Scott Brown has a better chance of winning in otherwise liberal New Hampshire versus Thom Tillis in conservative North Carolina.

No comments:

Post a Comment