A quarter of New Hampshire voters don't know who they favor in next year's Senate race, according to a University of New Hampshire Granite State Poll conducted Sept. 25 to Oct. 2.
Among voters with a preference, though, former state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, had a 7-point lead over Democratic Rep. Paul W. Hodes, the survey found.
Ayotte led Hodes 40 percent to 33 percent -- a slight increase over her 4 point advantage in a June poll.
But any advantage Ayotte might have among those voters has to be tempered by the large percentages who don't know the candidates yet.
The survey found that 37 percent of respondents didn't know enough about Hodes to offer an opinion; 49 percent didn't know enough to comment about Ayotte; 75 percent had no opinion of Republican hopeful Ovide Lamontagne; and 86 percent were unable to offer an opinion about Republican National Committeeman Sean Mahoney, another GOP hopeful.
Sen. Judd Gregg, a Republican, is retiring next year, leaving a wide open race for his seat.
The poll interviewed 466 likely voters and had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.
CQ Politics currently rates the general election race as a Tossup.
To see how the 2010 Senate races are shaping up, check out the CQ Politics election map.
-- Shira Toeplitz
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A year out from the election, the only person who has won a state-wide election is the front-runner.
That is the sort of thing the current Republican leadership cheers about.
Posted by: Robert Chapman
| October 7, 2009 5:21 PM
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