With Cook moving NH-GOV to safe R today, I just wanted to explain why I think that was a bad decision and that it is Lean R instead. (1/x) #nhpolitics

In 2018, the Ds nominated State Sen. Molly Kelly. Kelly didn’t campaign much, and was basically a sacrificial lamb against Sununu. She then went in to lose by a closer than expected 8%, a decent loss, but still respectable nonetheless. (2/x)

The polls in 2018 had Kelly down like 30% in Sep. after the primary. She then narrowed it down considerably to a still large 8% loss in an Emerson poll, 1% loss in a D internal, and a tie in an early Nov. in a UNH poll. (3/x)

This is a similar scenario to the 2020 polls for the NH-GOV election, except they still show an ~20% loss of Dan Feltes. The polls do have wild swing that were not as present in 2018. For example, a early Oct. Suffolk poll had an R+24 result, while an ARG poll conducted... (4/x)

in the final days of Sep. had an R+8 result. The Suffolk poll also had 14% undecided, while ARG had 4%.

In 2018, undecideds broke for Molly Kelly by a little less than a 2-1 margin, and most polls has less undecideds than do this year. (5/x)

If undecideds break for Feltes, the race narrows up significantly, though still would be about a mid single digit margin win for Sununu.

One thing I’ve noticed is that Feltes campaigns a lot, and did very well in the numerous debates. There is definitely a... (6/x)

lot more enthusiasm for Feltes than there was for Kelly. Enthusiasm doesn’t 100% translate to votes, but it does gauge D support for Feltes and Sununu. Sununu won with a lot of independent support, and some D support. (7/x)

If sununu loses 80-90% of his Dem support, putting him around average numbers for a republican with dem voters, and he carries 2/3 of independents (they were tied in 2016 Pres according to exit polls), he wins by about 5% or so. If Feltes can lessen sununus support... (8/x)

among independent voters to maybe 46-51, while winning maybe 5% of Rs, with Sununu winning 5% of Ds, it could be a less than 1% race, seeing as Ds have more registered voters than Rs do in NH. Rs had about 20k more registered voters than Ds did in 2016 and 2018. (9/x)

Now, Ds have a 20k advantage.

The polling for the race is not competitive, but there’s enthusiasm for feltes. Sununu has done enough on COVID that he could’ve avoided a real race, but as cases go up, he takes the blame. Sununu has the advantage, but don’t count Feltes out.

@srq203 @SenhorRaposa @kilometerbryman @JonMIPol @JMilesColeman @NilesGApol