On the eve of the primary, Ovide Lamontagne continues to surge–but is there enough time?

  The New Hampshire Republican senate race has been a hotly contested battle with Kelly Ayotte and Jim Binnie exchanging blows in an attempt to fill the seat vacated by the retiring Judd Gregg. Tomorrow is primary day and at long last a winner will be declared.

  But a funny thing has happened during the march towards primary day. Votes have started to be turned off by all of the negative campaigning of these two candidates and have begun to look elsewhere. Enter longshot conservative candidate Ovid Lamontagne into the picture.

  As I have written many times in the past few weeks, Ovide Lamontagne is the one true conservative in the race, but lacking the funding of the other two frontrunners he had been unable to gain traction. That all changed early last week when polls began to show Ovide Lamontagne surging at the expense of Bill Binnie.

  In one short week Ovide Lamontagne has risen from the ranks of the also rans and has actually pulled ahead of Bill Binnie in the polls. Early polls last week showed Ovide Lamontagne in second place trailing Kelly Ayotte by 12 points; over the weekend the surging Lamontagne closed the gap to within 10 points, and earlier this afternoon a poll came out that showed Ovide Lamontagne within striking distance of Kelly Ayotte–trailing by only 7 points. But the news has become even better for Ovide Lamontagne as a poll was just released that showed him trailing Kelly Ayotte by a mere 4 points–35%-31%. He is now within the margin of error.

  At this stage in the game it still looks as of Kelly Ayotte is going to be able to hold on to win a close primary, but there are two factors that could propel Ovide Lamontagne to victory–independent, undecided voters, and voters who seek to find a more viable candidate to oppose Kelly Ayotte.

  Let’s look at the second factor first.

  Throughout the latest polling cycle over the last week Kelly Ayotte has not lost any voters; she has maintained her percentage of somewhere around 35% of the vote, the surge by Ovide Lamontagne seems to be coming from people who once supported Bill Binnie.

  A key factor in the vote tomorrow will be whether or not more supporters of Bill Binnie and the other candidates who have no shot at winning decide to cast their votes for a more relevent candidate. If this happens I would suspect that most of these votes would swing over to Ovide Lamontagne, as these voters were looking for someone new in the first place.

  The other factor in the vote tomorrow will be the independent votes. According to the internals of the poll, Ovide Lamontagne holds an advantage of 30 to 27 percent. A slight advantage, but an advantage nonetheless. Voter turnout is going to be key. It is being projected that independent voters–who can vote in either the Democrat or Republican primary–are going to buck the trend of recent elections and take a Republican ballot; it is also being projected that independent voter turnout is going to be low.

  If the independents show up to vote in large numbers–and choose a Republican ballot–this has to help Ovide Lamontagne’s chances. When you combine these two factors it looks as if there is a very real chance that Ovide Lamotagne will be able to pull off the upset tomorrow.

  I decided to vote for Ovide Lamontagne a few weeks ago; when I threw my support behind hin it looked as though there was no chance that he was going to win. But I truly believe in Ovide Lamontagne–I honestly believe he is the best candidate–and to see him gain so much momentum in such a short period of time, with no funding, is exciting and gratifying to say the least.

  The biggest question is, is there enough time for Ovide Lamontagne to pull off the upset? That question is still in doubt–but up until last week it was a question that I didn’t think we would even be asking–but we will know in just a few short hours.

  Once again a beg all independent, undecided voters to please take another look at Ovide’s Oath before making your decision. To those that are currently supporting another candidate, I ask you to please take one final look at Ovide Lamontagne. He needs your vote, but more importantly, New Hampshire needs your vote.