2010 New Hampshire Senate - Ayotte vs. Hodes

10/30/10 -- It doesn't look like this one is happening for Hodes.  Ayotte is over 50 percent and on pace to win by double digits.

9/29/10 -- With around 30 days left, Ayotte seems to be in the driver's seat.  Will undecideds break against her?  They are going to have to strongly prefer Hodes to her if he is going to capture Gregg's seat.

----------Race Preview---------

For most of the late 20th century, New Hampshire’s politics were driven by the influx of citizens from Massachusetts. In the 1970s and 80s, these voters were sympathetic to the taxpayer revolt and threw out both Democratic senators in favor of Republicans. In the 1990s and 2000s, these voters, like many northern suburbanites, began to rebel against the southern-accented GOP’s conservative values on social issues, and the state elected mostly Democratic governors, while Republicans saw their margin in the Senate races shrink. In 2008 they lost one of their Senate seats, as a scion of a prominent New Hampshire Republican family was handily defeated by a former Democratic governor.

In early 2009, Senator Gregg was tapped by President Obama to be the new secretary of commerce. Gregg quickly withdrew from the post, but opted not to run for re-election. On the Democratic side, 2nd District Congressman Paul Hodes threw his hat into the ring. On the Republican side, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, who Sarah Palin named one of her "Mama Grizzlies," narrowly won the party's nomination over conservative 1996 gubernatorial candidate Ovide Lamontagne. She also had to contend with a pair of well-funded businessmen, Bill Binnie and Jim Bender.

Gallup had President Obama’s mid-2010 approval ratings at 41-52 among adults in the Granite State. Hodes’ quite liberal voting record is probably a bit to the left of this swing state, and New Hampshire overall seems to have swung back toward the Republicans heavily this cycle.