Group fined $20,000 for conducting an illegal push poll for the Paul Hodes campaign

  During the Republican primary for the senate seat being vacated by retiring senator Judd Gregg, it became evident that somebody was conducting an illegal push poll against the presumptive nominee, Kelly Ayotte. All of her Republican primary opponents vehemently denied that they were involved in this poll, but the silence was deafening coming from the camp of the unopposed Democrat, Paul Hodes.

  Paul Hodes’s campaign only stated that they would not comment on any “market research” that they conduct during the course of a campaign. This certainly seemed as if the Hodes campaign was responsible for this poll, the only question being whether or not this “market research” was an illegal push poll or whether it was legal.

  The New Hampshire GOP promptly asked for an investigation into this push poll because it was fairly evident that somebody was targeting Kelly Ayotte in this poll and it was most likely her Democrat opponent in the general election. That investigation was granted and today we learned the results of that investigation.

  Mountain West Research–a group conducting polling for the Paul Hodes campaign–was fined $20,ooo for conducting this push poll ending once and for all the false notion that Paul Hodes was simply conducting “market research” and proving that his campaign was actually engaged in an illegal push poll against Kelly Ayotte.

Attorney General Michael Delaney announced this afternoon that, following an investigation, his office found that Mountain West Research made calls that fall under the state’s legal definition of push polling, but did not provide necessary disclosures required by statute.

Those disclosures include “that the telephone call is being made on behalf of, in support of, or in opposition to a particular candidate,” that the candidate be identified and the telephone number from where the push polling is conducted.”

  Paul Hodes had a legitimate reason to be afraid of Kelly Ayotte and was hopeful that this push poll would  influence voters to either back another Republican candidate that he had a better chance of beating in the general election, or even of swaying potential Kelly Ayotte supporters into voting for him because shortly after she won the GOP primary Kelly Ayotte jumped out to a fifteen point lead over Paul Hodes–a lead that a poll released earlier this week shows she has maintained as voters solidify their support for their candidates.

  Paul Hodes is desperate, he saw the writing on the wall even before Kelly Ayotte won the nomination and he stooped to illegal polling in an attempt to sway voters in a manner that shows us that he doesn’t believe the voters to be of a high intelligence if they are susceptible to such obvious nefarious and illegal tactics.