New poll shows that Ovide Lamontagne can beat Paul Hodes in the general election

  I understand that this blog has become “Ovide-centric” in the last few days but you are going to have to bear with me as I take this opportunity to bring you the latest poll numbers as we head into the primary tomorrow.

  There may be one reason above all that many of Kelly Ayotte’s supporters have decided to vote for her over any of the other candidates–electability. The Democrat who is vying to replace the retiring Judd Gregg–Paul Hodes–is a left wing, Nancy Pelosi rubber stamp. He votes with Nancy Pelosi well over 90% of the time and it is imperative that we do not allow him to become the junior senator of New Hampshire.

  Most polls have shown that Kelly Ayotte has the best chance of beating Paul Hodes in the general election and this may have been a deciding factor with voters who might actually have prefered another candidate. They may have simply decided to vote for Kelly Ayotte simply because she had the best chance to beat Paul Hodes. She used her electablilty in her closing statement in the last debate when she declared that we should vote for her because she can defeat Paul Hodes.

  But a new poll by Public Policy Polling shows us that Ovide Lamontagne and Kelly Ayotte have basically the same chance of beating Paul Hodes in the general election. The pollsters for some reason are declining to release these results until after the primary, but according to the article I linked to above, Ovide Lamontagne only fares one point worse against Paul Hodes than does Kelly Ayotte–this means Ovide Lamontagne is beating Paul Hodes in general election polling at this date.

  But there is even more good news in this poll; Ovide Lamontagne’s favorability rating in this poll is actually 15 points higher than Kelly Ayotte’s–probably due to the negative campaigning run by and against her–and because of this there is actually the likelihood that Ovide Lamontagne could grow his lead against Paul Hodes if he were to pull off the upset tomorrow.

  While Ovide Lamontagne has been surging in the polls, he has not managed to strip away any of Kelly Ayotte’s supporters, he has done it at the expense of the other candidates in the race. There may be some Kelly Ayotte supporters who would vote for Ovide Lamontagne if they felt that he had a real chance to beat Paul Hodes; this latest poll shows that he indeed does have that chance.

  So now I ask all of Kelly Ayotte’s supporters who would like to throw their support behind Ovide Lamontagne but were afraid to do so because of his electability to take a second look at Ovide Lamontagne because he has an equal chance at beating Paul Hodes.

  Kelly Ayotte is a good candidate, but Ovide Lamontagne is the best candidate.