Republican Matt Mowers holds a narrow lead in the primary race in New Hampshire’s battleground First District, according to a recent poll.
The poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center from August 25 to 29, found Mowers with a two-point edge over his closest competitor, Karoline Leavitt. Mowers received 26 percent, Leavitt received 24 percent, and Gail Huff Brown received 16 percent.
Other candidates landed in the single-digits, and 26 percent said they were undecided.
The Republicans in the running are all hoping to unseat Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH), a two-term congressman who is viewed as one of the Democrat incumbents most vulnerable to losing his seat in this year’s midterms. Pappas narrowly defeated Mowers by single digits in his reelection race in 2020.
Election analyst Cook Political Report rates the state’s First District as a toss-up and one of just a handful in the country with zero partisan leaning.
The three top Republicans in the poll are also the three most well-funded candidates and the only three to have raised more than a million dollars, per Open Secrets data through June 30. Mowers is a former Trump-appointed State Department official, Leavitt is a former Trump assistant press secretary, and Gail Huff Brown is a former longtime TV journalist and wife of former Sen. Scott Brown.
The poll is consistent with other recent polls that have found Mowers in the lead, though this is the first poll to show Mowers neck-and-neck with Leavitt and also the first to indicate Huff Brown has gained ground.
Leavitt said in a statement that the poll showed her “campaign is surging” and took a jab at Mowers, saying that “despite the establishment spending hundreds of thousands of $ to rescue their puppet, they will NOT slow down our momentum.”
Huff Brown also celebrated the poll results as they showed her in her strongest position yet. Huff Brown is “encroaching quickly on the frontrunners,” her campaign said in a statement about the poll, adding that, “importantly, the poll was fielded entirely before our first ad completed its full schedule.”
Another ad from Huff Brown, her most recent television ad, deviates from Republicans’ typically unwavering no-exceptions stance on protecting the unborn. Huff Brown, who told Breitbart News she supports the Supreme Court’s monumental decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, conveys in the ad that she has personally chosen life but that if she were in Congress, she would “protect the New Hampshire law and the choice that it guarantees.”
Her campaign noted it believes the ad will help Huff Brown to “make inroads” with women voters.
According to the poll, 32 percent of women support Mowers, 28 percent support Huff Brown, ten percent support Leavitt, and many women voters, 28 percent, remain undecided.
Mowers and Huff Brown are even in terms of favorability ratings as each received a net favorability of +21 in the poll. Leavitt is third in net favorability at +15.
New Hampshire’s primary takes place in just under two weeks, on September 13.
The poll was conducted among 419 likely Republican primary voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8 percent.
Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com. Follow her on Twitter at @asholiver.
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