GOP observers warn of impending down ballot carnage for Granite State Republicans
The down ballot implications of having a deeply flawed candidate at the top of the ticket are beginning to hit New Hampshire Republicans. Those who are not on the ballot in November are warning of sweeping losses in November.
Former House speaker Bill O’Brien, a persistent critic of Donald Trump who nevertheless says he will be voting for him in November, reacted to a new poll showing Hillary Clinton with a 15 point lead in the Granite State by sounding the alarm.
“If you are a down ballot candidate from the same party as a presidential candidate losing by 15%,” O’Brien wrote on Facebook, “it is like having a 25 lbs. weight tied around your neck and then jumping into the deep end. You might not drown,” he concluded, “but you had better hope your deep end is only 4 feet deep.”
A ‘dramatic post-convention bump’
The survey, sponsored by WBUR and conducted by MassINC Polling Group at the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention, has Clinton leading Trump 47 percent to 32 percent. The survey of 609 likely New Hampshire voters gives Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson 8 percent with 3 percent expressing support for Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
While these results are fairly consistent with early results from other battleground states, Clinton numbers are likely inflated by a temporary post-convention bounce (a phenomenon that may be the result of changing patterns of survey nonresponse rather than changes in voter intention).
In its “polls-plus forecast,” which factors in polls, the economy and historical data, FiveThirtyEight projects Clinton will win New Hampshire by just under three points, 47.5 percent to 44.8 percent, which translates to a 63 percent win probability. (FiveThirtyEight’s “polls only forecast” has Clinton winning by a larger 47.5 percent to 42.7 percent margin with a 72 percent win probability.
Nevertheless, Ed Mosca, the former House counsel under then-Speaker O’Brien, predicts the down ballot impact of the election will be catastrophic for Republicans. He believes It is “very unlikely” that the GOP will maintain control of the New Hampshire House where they currently hold 230 seats in the 400-seat chamber.
Mosca predicts big gains for Democrats in the lower chamber, tweeting that he sees Democrats winning back the House majority with “around 250 seats.”
Former state party chair Fergus Cullen reminds Republicans, who may believe these warnings are exaggerated, of the down ballot results in previous wave elections.
“In 2008 and 2010, voters did not draw distinctions [between the presidential candidate and down ballot candidates],” he told the New York Times, “It was not like Passover, where the door was marked, ‘This one should be spared.’ No, the Angel of Death came in and said no ‘Let’s kill them all.’ ”