Polls: Scott Brown, Jeanne Shaheen Tied In New Hampshire

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire —  Two new polls out of New Hampshire show that former Sen. Scott Brown is now tied with incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). 

The polling was done in the days leading up to when Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) came to New Hampshire to endorse Brown, as the Drudge Report, Breitbart News, the Washington Times, and others highlighted that Paul was coming to unify the Republican Party after the primaries last week.

A CNN-ORC poll released on Monday shows Brown and Shaheen tied among “likely voters,” with each at 48 percent. Among “registered voters” in the poll of 1,039 adults conducted from Sept. 8 through Sept. 11, Shaheen still has an edge of 51 percent to Brown’s 44 percent.

Another poll released late last week, conducted by National Research on behalf of the conservative group Ending Spending Action Fund, found that Brown and Shaheen are tied among likely voters with each receiving 45 percent of the vote. That poll of 1,000 likely voters in New Hampshire was conducted from Sept. 9 through Sept. 11.

“Energy also seems to be on the Republican side. Among voters who identify themselves as certain to vote, Brown holds a 47-44 lead,” pollster Adam Geller of National Research wrote to Ending Spending’s Brian Baker in a memo provided to Breitbart News. “Importantly, 70% of voters recall having seen, read or heard about Senator Shaheen. The commercials produced by Ending Spending are the ones voters recall – with specific mentions of content recall virtually straight from the Ending Spending script.”

Geller added that Brown holds an eight-point-lead among likely voters who have seen or heard any ads about Sen. Shaheen. 

“Among the 70% who recall seeing or hearing an advertisement about Senator Shaheen, Scott Brown leads 49%-41%,” Geller wrote. “All of this leads to the very real possibility that she could be defeated in November, provided the advertising against her can match or exceed the advertising that is sure to come from the Democrats and their affiliated groups.”

Paul spent Thursday evening and Friday in New Hampshire endorsing Brown over Shaheen and serving as the keynote speaker at the New Hampshire GOP’s post-primary unity breakfast on Friday morning. The CNN-ORC poll found that Paul leads the current expected field of GOP presidential candidates heading into the 2016 cycle, garnering 15 percent which towers over Jeb Bush and Paul Ryan who are tied for second with 10 percent each. Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee tied for third with 9 percent each in that poll.

“A lot of the local Republicans said it was a very good turnout, and I think to me it was very impressive and what New Hampshire does right–or appears to do right–is I think all the challengers were there,” Paul said in an interview with Breitbart News about the breakfast shortly afterwards. “We’ve got several hotspots around the country where unification is more difficult but New Hampshire is ahead of the game and I think that’s going to help because Scott Brown has a difficult battle I think to beat an incumbent. He can, but it’s not an easy battle. Having the party unified will help him a great deal.”

Paul added in that interview that he was endorsing Brown–which he did later in the day over in Durham, New Hampshire, at the University of New Hampshire about an hour away from the breakfast. “I think what Scott Brown is probably most well known for is his opposition to Obamacare,” Paul said. “I think at one point in time he was going to be the 41st vote to stop Obamacare and he voted against Obamacare. Now I’d like to see him become the 51st vote against Obamacare and I hope it’ll help us get rid of Obamacare.”

“He will also be a vote for Republican leadership over the Democrats,” Paul added. “It’s night and day and I think the American public needs to realize that unless Republicans become the majority party we’re going to continue to be under the iron fist of Harry Reid and as long as that happens no legislation will pass and nothing will get done for another couple years. Really, Harry Reid has been the big impediment to getting anything done. If New Hampshire elects Scott Brown, Harry Reid will be the minority leader.”