Hassan’s lead narrows over Bolduc in New Hampshire: poll

Don Bolduc, the GOP Senate nominee in New Hampshire, is narrowing the gap between him and Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) with less than three weeks until Election Day, a new survey indicated on Friday. 

According to a poll by Fabrezio, Lee and Associates, a GOP pollster, that was commissioned by Bolduc’s campaign, Hassan’s lead is down to 2 percentage points — 49 percent to 47 percent. The margin of error for the poll is 4 percentage points.

Those totals differ from recent public polls, which still show Hassan leading comfortably. The latest RealClearPolitics average of surveys puts her lead at 5.6 percent over Bolduc, who ran for Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s (D) seat in 2020 but failed to make it through the Republican primary.

Hassan was considered among the most vulnerable Senate Democrats up for reelection earlier this year, but has had a number of things break in her direction since then. Topping that list is the lack of a top-notch GOP challenger after New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) took a pass on a Senate campaign and ran for a fourth two-year term in Concord.

Additionally, she also saw her approval rating tick upward in that time. According to St. Anselm College polls taken in October 2021 and last month, Hassan’s approval rating has jumped from 44 percent to 48 percent. 

The Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball both have the race categorized as leaning Democratic. 

Hassan is part of a group of Democratic incumbents who are considered the firewall to keeping the Senate majority alongside Sens. Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Michael Bennet (Colo.), Raphael Warnock (Ga.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), with the latter two lawmakers featuring in the closest contests of the bunch. 

As for Bolduc, he defeated Chuck Morse, the president of the New Hampshire Senate, in the GOP primary on Sept. 13, one of the latest primaries on the 2022 calendar, but is considered among the weakest of the party’s Senate challengers. Bolduc has falsely argued that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Trump and has raised only $1.2 million as of the end of September for his campaign, including less than $800,000 in cash on hand.