NH GOP to choose trio of nominees

New Hampshire Republicans will pick a trio of nominees in the final primary night of the year, angling to flip two House seats and a Senate seat from Democrats. 

Here’s your cheat sheet for what to watch on Tuesday evening. Both New Hampshire and Massachusetts polls close at 8 p.m. 

Senate Republican primary 

{mosads}Tuesday night will be the first test of whether Republican Scott Brown has convinced Granite State voters to trust the former senator from Massachusetts.

Brown is the heavy favorite to win his party’s nomination to take on Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) this fall. He is expected to easily defeat his two main opponents, former New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith and former state Sen. Jim Rubens.

But the primary hasn’t been a cakewalk for Brown. He’s had to grapple with dissatisfaction from conservatives in the state over his record on gun control and healthcare reform. And he has faced more than $1.6 million in attacks against him from a group backing Rubens — not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by Democratic groups.

And though Republicans agree he gives the party its best shot at taking down Shaheen this fall, he’s still not beloved in the state.

Democrats believe some of the positions he’s taken during the primary — like his suggestion that climate change is not entirely man-made — have given them opportunities to peg him as out of touch and too extreme for New Hampshire. 

And they’ll be watching his margin of victory for evidence of weakness. Aware of this, Brown’s campaign has set expectations low, saying Wednesday it expects him to receive less than 40 percent of the vote in the primary.

1st District Republican Primary 

Former Rep. Frank Guinta (R) is expected to easily pull out a win over businessman Dan Innis and move on to a rematch with Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.) this fall.

Innis has gotten a boost from a mortgage mogul who calls himself a friend of the candidate and created a super-PAC to support the openly gay Republican, as well as a pro-gay-rights group backed by major GOP donor Paul Singer. Together, the groups have spent about $750,000 on ads boosting him.

But it’s unlikely that Innis will be able to overcome Guinta’s name recognition in a district the Republican already represented once before.

2nd District Republican Primary

Republican state Rep. Marilinda Garcia has become the unexpected front-runner in the GOP primary to take on Rep. Ann McLane Kuster (D-N.H.) this fall. The onetime underdog successfully flipped the script used against her to paint her main opponent, former state Sen. Gary Lambert, as extreme.

Lambert has come under fire for signing a pledge opposing a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, which was organized by hard-right conservative group FAIR, and for running ads that Garcia’s supporters say have racial undertones because they attack Garcia — who is of Hispanic and Italian descent — on immigration and tout Lambert as “one of us.” 

While he’s attacked Garcia as a supporter of “amnesty,” due to her position in favor of a pathway to citizenship, she received backup on the immigration issue from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who campaigned for her in New Hampshire this weekend, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R). She has also been endorsed by the Club for Growth. 

The race has grown nastier by the week, and Garcia raised eyebrows when she refused to shake Lambert’s hand after a debate last week. The state party chairwoman reportedly contacted both of the candidates and called for them to tone down their attacks. 

Scant polling has, however, made it difficult to predict the outcome of the primary, and New Hampshire Republicans say Lambert still has a shot.

Though Garcia has emerged as a strong candidate with an attractive profile, she could still give Republicans a headache this fall. She initially appeared to be the weaker of the two candidates because of her more conservative positions, and Democrats are planning to hammer her for her opposition to the Paycheck Fairness Act, the Violence Against Women Act, an increase in the minimum wage and any gun control efforts.