The Daily Background

Good news from my home state of New Hampshire… A new ARG poll has found that President Bush’s approval rating in this first-in-the-nation primary state, has a 14% approval rating. New Hampshire, which has been seen as reliably conservative for decades, voted in 2006 to throw out both of its Republican House Representatives in favor of Democrats, helping the Dems get the current majority it enjoys in Congress. New Hampshire’s conservativeness has generally been more fiscally-based, not socially.

79% disapproved of Bush’s performance according to the poll.

The poll also found that the state’s Democratic governor, John Lynch, has a 64% approval rating, with 16% undecided (only 20% disapproved). In 2008, the state’s one-term Republican Senator John Sununu will be up for re-election, and the poll shows him being trounced by NH’s former Democratic governor Jeane Shaheen, should she decide to get in the race.

Shaheen ran against Sununu in 2002, and was beaten by him narrowly, although later several state Republican officials and GOP operatives were convicted in a voter suppression scheme targeting Democratic voters. The new poll shows that in a potential re-match, Shaheen would best Sununu by a comfortable margin– 57% to 29%– despite not having campaigned or announced she will run.

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