On the trail: Ayotte with slight edge over Craig in post-primary poll

Joyce Craig, left, and Kelly Ayotte

Joyce Craig, left, and Kelly Ayotte DEREK STOKLEY and GEOFF FORESTER—WMUR and Monitor staff, respectively, via AP

By PAUL STEINHAUSER

Concord Monitor

Published: 09-17-2024 5:01 PM

A new public opinion survey conducted after last week’s state primary in New Hampshire indicates former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte holding a small advantage over former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig in the race to succeed four-term Republican Gov. Chris Sununu.

According to a poll from the Saint Anselm College Survey Center, 46% of likely voters in New Hampshire support Ayotte, the Republican gubernatorial nominee. Craig, the Democratic nominee, had the backing of 43% of likely voters.

Ayotte, a former state attorney general before winning election to the Senate in 2010, soundly defeated former New Hampshire Senate president Chuck Morse last Tuesday to win the GOP gubernatorial nomination. Craig, who served three two-year terms steering the Granite State’s largest city, edged out Cinde Warmington, the only Democrat on the state’s five-member Executive Council, to capture their party’s nomination.

With the race considered the only competitive gubernatorial election in the nation this year, both the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) and the rival Republican Governors Association (RGA) are throwing plenty of resources into the Granite State showdown, as New Hampshire has already witnessed a slew of attack ads.

And during the primary process, both Ayotte and Craig came under verbal fire from their nomination rivals.

“Relatively negative primary campaigns have cost both gubernatorial candidates some popularity. Both candidates are regarded unfavorably by a high number of voters, with Ayotte at a 45%-50% favorable image and Craig at 37%-36%,” Neil Levesque, executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, highlighted in the survey’s release. “With control of the corner office at stake, this race is likely to be hard-fought while attracting a great deal of attention and resources.”

In the race to succeed retiring six-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster in New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District, the poll indicates Democratic nominee Maggie Goodlander leading GOP primary winner Lily Tang Williams 49%-38%.

Goodlander, a former top lawyer in President Joe Biden’s administration who served in the U.S. Justice Department and who is the wife of Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan, easily topped Colin Van Ostern, a former executive councilor and the Democrats’ 2016 gubernatorial nominee, to win the party’s congressional nomination. Tang Williams, a Libertarian-leaning Republican who fled communist China and who’s making her second straight bid for Congress, edged out a crowded field of rivals to capture the GOP nomination.

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In the state’s 1st Congressional District, three-term Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas leads Republican nominee and former state senator and executive councilor Russell Prescott 50%-38%, according to the poll.