(The Center Square) — Former New Hampshire Sen. John Sununu is leading former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown in the race to flip one of New Hampshire’s two U.S. Senate seats for Republicans in the fall.
The University of New Hampshire survey, released Thursday, found that among likely Republican primary voters, 56% said they would support Sununu if the GOP primary were held today, compared to 19% for Brown. Another 2% said they would vote for businessman Charlie Hough, while 21% were still undecided, according to pollsters.
That’s a wider lead than a similar UNH poll released in September that found 42% of likely Republican voters favor Sununu versus 27% who would vote for Brown, in a primary matchup. At the time, about 31% of those polled were still undecided. Both men are seeking the party’s nomination to run for the seat currently held by Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who announced last year that she was retiring.
The latest poll showed Trump-backed Sununu with a majority of support from conservatives, libertarians and a plurality of moderate GOP voters. About half of likely GOP voters have a favorable opinion of Sununu, while only 25% of those polled said they have a favorable opinion of Brown, according to the UNH survey.
Brown, a former New Zealand ambassador who lost a New Hampshire Senate race against Shaheen in 2014, entered the race early by declaring his candidacy before Shaheen announced she would not run for another term.
Sununu, whose lineage hails from one of New Hampshire’s most storied political families, jumped into the race in January after months of speculation that he was seeking to make a comeback bid to reclaim the seat he lost to Democrats 17 years ago. The veteran lawmaker represented New Hampshire in the Senate from 2003 to 2008 after serving in the House of Representatives.
He is viewed as the favorite among Republicans, with many of the state’s top GOP officials publicly backing his candidacy. The Senate Leadership Fund, which is aligned with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, is pumping $17 million into Sununu’s bid to win the Senate race, hoping to flip the Democratic held seat as the GOP tries to hold onto the chamber. President Donald Trump has also endorsed his campaign
On the Democratic side, four-term Rep. Chris Pappas will face off against state Rep. Jared Sullivan and political newcomer Karishma Manzur for the party’s nomination to run for the Senate seat.
UNH pollsters said Pappas is well-positioned to win the Democratic primary, with about 61% of Democratic voters surveyed saying they support him, compared to 18% for Manzur and 1% for Sullivan. About 18% of democratic voters were still undecided between the candidates, pollsters found.
In a hypothetical general election matchup between Sununu and Pappas, 49% said they would vote for Pappas compared to 42% for Sununu, with 6% still undecided. Those numbers are largely unchanged from a similar pole by UNH in September. Ninety-three percent of Democrats and 45% of independents favor Pappas, while 93% of Republicans said they would vote for Sununu in a general election, pollsters said.
