U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen clings to a tenuous 3-point lead over GOP challenger Scott Brown but falls short of the magic 50 percent mark, despite an attack ad bombardment that has left Brown's public image reeling, an exclusive new Suffolk University-Boston Herald poll reveals.
With just a little more than two weeks before Election Day, the Democratic incumbent leads Brown by a 49-46 percent margin among 500 likely New Hampshire voters in a race that could tilt the balance of power in the U.S. Senate.
The margin is hardly comforting to Democrats since it shows Shaheen's support has remained stagnant over the last few months. In the last Suffolk-Herald poll in June, Shaheen held the exact same level of support – 49 percent – among likely voters.
Brown's support has increased by 7 points since June. But Brown's favorability has taken a major hit in the rough election campaign, with 48 percent of likely voters viewing him negatively. He needs a late surge to catch up, because most voters have already made up their minds, according to David Paleologos, director of Suffolk University's Political Research Center.
"He's got to get most of the (6 percent) undecideds," Paleologos said in on Boston Herald Radio's "Morning Meeting" show.
In one of the most surprising results of the Suffolk-Herald poll, Shaheen is winning more than 40 percent of Republican primary voters who supported one of Brown's GOP challengers. That indicates many conservatives and other GOP voters still hold some animosity against the former Massachusetts senator who just moved to New Hampshire.
"The assumption was those (voters) are going to Brown," Paleologos said.
In the New Hampshire governor's race, Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan's once overwhelming lead has dropped dramatically since the last Suffolk-Herald poll. Hassan still holds a 10-point margin over Republican Walt Havenstein – 49-39 percent – but she held a 30-point lead in June.
The Suffolk-Herald poll shows one of the biggest reasons for Shaheen's failure to close the deal with voters is the continuing decline of her party's unpopular leader, President Obama. Just 4 in 10 New Hampshire voters approve of Obama's job performance, while a jaw-dropping 56 percent disapprove, according to the poll.
Obama carried New Hampshire by 6 points in 2012 but has been anything but an asset for Shaheen's campaign. Brown's campaign ads have almost exclusively targeted Shaheen's nearly perfect voting score for Obama's agenda, and 35 percent of likely Granite State voters say that record has made them less likely to back the Democratic incumbent. But 44 percent of voters say Brown's ads have made no difference in their decision.
The Shaheen campaign's single-minded strategy of questioning Brown's record on issues important to women, such as abortion, has also had a limited impact on the race, according to the poll. Forty-five percent of New Hampshire voters say they trust Brown to stand up for women's rights, while 44 percent don't trust him.
