You may have come across a reference to this item in the Washington Post today, in which the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Judd Gregg is ranked high on a list of seats likely to change party at the midterms. The item focuses primarily on former New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte’s fundraising numbers for the fourth quarter, and suggests that she is turning out to be somewhat less competitive as a candidate than Republicans had initially hoped.

 

Although the item implies that Ayotte’s fundraising numbers are a bit lackluster, she is still far outpacing her primary opponents, in terms of an ability to bring in money from donors (we’re waiting for Ovide Lamontagne’s numbers). It is also true that Democratic Congressman Paul Hodes is over $1 million ahead of Ayotte for the fundraising year, but he had a nice head start, and the two were reasonably close with their third and fourth quarter totals.

 

The bigger issue for Ayotte is that two of her primary opponents, businessmen Bill Binnie and Jim Bender, were willing to kick in a combined $1.7 million of their own money to fund their campaigns, and that probably won’t be the last of it. While both are running early ads to build name recognition, they could create a whole lot of mischief with that kind of money, especially with attack ads against Ayotte, should they decide to run them. That kind of intra-party battle could derail her candidacy, or instead make her a tougher candidate for the general election. It’s really too soon to tell, but this race now seems headed for an interesting spring and summer.

---