With less than two months to go until Election Day, New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte has quickly found herself in her best position yet to defeat Democratic challenger Maggie Hassan and maintain her seat in the U.S. Senate.
The incumbent Republican senator began to fall behind Democratic New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan in June, despite flooding local airwaves with ads that promoted her bipartisan record and receiving significant outside support from an assortment of super PACs. The battle between Hassan and Ayotte has since become one of the most expensive and contested races this cycle, partially because of New Hampshire’s overwhelming population of independent voters.
After skipping the GOP convention in July to stay and campaign in the Granite State, a WBUR poll showed Ayotte trailing Hassan by 10 percentage points. Around the same time, she was publicly targeted by Donald Trump for having lent him “zero support” in the crucial battleground state.
But as Hassan continues to suffer a self-inflicted firestorm for thrice declining to say Hillary Clinton is “honest and trustworthy,” and her campaign takes on an increasingly negative tone, Ayotte appears to be making a swift and perhaps unforeseen comeback.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist survey released over the weekend found Ayotte leading Hassan by 8 percentage points, marking the first time a poll has shown her ahead by 5 or more points since January. The New York Times gave Hassan a 64 percent chance last month of unseating Ayotte in November, but now says Republicans have a 58 percent chance of maintaining the seat.
While dealing with the fallout of her Clinton gaffe, Hassan, a steadfast supporter of the Democratic presidential nominee, has faced new questions about developments related to Clinton’s email scandal and her charitable foundation. The two-term governor continues to draw criticism for spending time at out-of-state Democratic fundraisers and never deviating from her talking points in interviews with reporters.
“The strategy, of course, denies her opponents fodder for attacks,” Politico reporter Burgess Everett wrote in a January profile of Hassan. “But it opens Hassan to criticism that she’s running a generic campaign and is looking to ride Hillary Clinton’s coattails to Capitol Hill.”
Ayotte and her surrogates claim Hassan would not only “ride Hillary Clinton’s coattails to Capitol Hill,” to borrow Everett’s phrase, but be a “rubber stamp” for the former secretary of state’s agenda in the Senate.
“At every turn, [Hassan] has embraced Clinton, her scandals, her years of baggage and her failed policies that have left New Hampshire and our nation less safe,” New Hampshire Republican Party Chairwoman Jennifer Horn wrote in an op-ed earlier this month. “Hassan has proven that she will not stand up to dangerous policies and behaviors of her presidential candidate and will not vocally condemn them.”
When it comes to embracing her party’s presidential nominee, Ayotte has approached Trump with caution. She has declined to fully endorse the billionaire businessman, but plans to vote for him in November — a strategy that her team believes will attract independent voters who have not yet warmed to Trump in the Granite State.
Between now and Nov. 8, Ayotte’s campaign said she will continue to campaign across the state and keep her focus on the pressing issues her constituents face.
“Kelly is campaigning town by town and voter by voter, whether it’s pouring beers at happy hour, riding trails on ATVs, or even helping giving voters a hand with their trash at the local dump,” Liz Johnson, a spokeswoman for Ayotte, told the Washington Examiner.
She and Hassan have also agreed to participate in six debates, beginning Sept. 30 and running through the week of the election, although the Democratic governor has not accepted Ayotte’s invitation to discuss foreign policy in a seventh debate.
Ayotte hinted at what she intends to press Hassan on during their upcoming debates and for the remainder of the campaign in a radio interview Tuesday morning, hours before she handedly won her primary against former Republican state Sen. Jim Rubens.
“I guess what I’d like to hear from her is why so negative? Why not be positive about what you stand for?” she told WXKL. “What are you going to do and fight for New Hampshire in the Senate, because I know what I’m going to fight for on behalf of the people of New Hampshire.”
