MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — MSNBC’s Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough said Thursday morning that Democrats are worried about incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).
“Debates matter,” Scarborough said of Tuesday evening’s debate. “I had a Democratic operative tell me that Jeanne Shaheen looked stiff and brittle and even a little angry on stage the other night, and they were very worried about her performance in the debate.”
Two new polls that have come out in the past day show the race is a dead heat. Both come right before another statewide televised debate that CNN and NH1 are hosting Thursday evening in Concord.
One poll, from New England College, conducted before the debate on Oct. 16, shows Brown with 47.7 percent to incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s 47.3 percent. It surveyed 921 likely New Hampshire voters and has a margin of error of 3.23 percent.
“All eyes are on the US Senate race between Senator Jeanne Shaheen and Scott Brown,” New England College political science professor Dr. Wayne Lesperance said in a statement. “The race is a dead heat. With time running short, this places greater importance on every campaign event for both candidates.”
During the debate, Brown among other things opened up the economic battlefield of the immigration issue over which he has attacked Shaheen. Polling data on that issue compiled for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) shows overwhelming agreement among all Americans on this issue. A whopping 71 percent of people nationwide stand with what Brown said on Tuesday night, including supermajorities of liberals and Obama supporters.
The second poll, from CNN/ORC, shows Shaheen up with 49 percent over Brown’s 47 percent. That poll was conducted Oct. 18 to Oct. 21 and sampled 645 likely voters. Shaheen’s two point lead in that poll is within the four percent margin of error.
Shaheen’s campaign threw this reporter out of a campaign event that advertised beforehand and afterwards as open press–and labeled as a “press conference.” CNN’s Dana Bash and NECN’s Katherine Underwood, among other reporters, were allowed inside.
Kate Nocera from BuzzFeed on Thursday Tweeted that the Shaheen campaign’s decision to do this was “not cute.”
The Washington Examiner’s Justin Green Tweeted that “this was a really bad move by” Shaheen’s campaign. “Open press is open press,” he Tweeted.
The Republican National Committee’s Raffi Williams Tweeted that he thinks that the Shaheen campaign’s move means that “she had something to hide” from this reporter.
Brown’s spokeswoman Lizzy Guyton added that Shaheen “resorts to a new tactic to avoid talking abt her record: kicking credentialed press out of her events.”
Brown’s campaign manager Colin Reed compared it to Shaheen’s role in pushing the IRS to target conservative groups.
“first she asks IRS to audit non-profits, now @jeanneshaheen kicking reporters out of open press events,” Reed Tweeted.
Others, like Roll Call’s Matt Fuller and the New Hampshire Union Leader editorial page editor Drew Cline, highlighted the Shaheen campaign’s move via Twitter as well..
New Hampshire GOP chairwoman Jennifer Horn told Breitbart News that the reason Shaheen kicked this reporter out of her event is because–as Scarborough says national Democrats are saying–she did horrendously during Tuesday’s debate.
“Jeanne Shaheen has avoided town hall meetings with her constituents because she is desperate to avoid questions about her record of voting with President Obama 99% of the time,” Horn said in an email after Breitbart News described what happened. “Now she is avoiding reporters because she doesn’t want to answer questions about her disastrous debate performance. Shaheen continues to thumb her nose at New Hampshire’s tradition of open and honest government.”
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