THERE are several reasons why this year's Senate race in New Hampshire is one of the most closely watched in America. It is the most high-profile political contest between two women—a sitting senator and a state governor—in the country’s history. It is the most expensive race to have been run in New Hampshire, with an estimated $100 million likely to have been spent in this relatively small state. And it could decide which party controls America’s upper chamber.
If Hillary Clinton wins the White House in November, Democrats need to pick up four seats to take back the Senate majority. It is likely that Democrats will defeat incumbent Republican senators in Illinois and Wisconsin, leaving the contests in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire as the key tests.
For several years both Kelly Ayotte, the Republican incumbent and Maggie Hassan, her Democratic challenger, have carefully developed their political brands. Both are popular and have serious political résumés. But this year the winner of the Senate contest will depend to an unusual degree on how the presidential race unfolds in this swing state. With less than two months to go until Election Day it is anyone’s guess how that will shake out.
Presidential campaign results have often heavily influenced races down the ballot. But that has been in years when Senate candidates have happily run with their presidential nominees. This year, the nominees have become a liability. Donald Trump and Mrs Clinton are the least popular presidential nominees since polling began. In New Hampshire, a state where about 40% of voters are independent, unaffiliated with either party, the chief strategy for each candidate has been to repeatedly put their opponent on the defensive about the other’s presidential nominee.
Mrs Hassan’s backers have aired three different adverts linking Mrs Ayotte to Mr Trump. In response, Mrs Ayotte's allies have sought to associate Mrs Hassan with Mrs Clinton, who is about 20 percentage points less popular than her.
In an interview with CNN in last month, Mrs Hassan refused on three separate occasions to say whether she found Mrs Clinton trustworthy. The interview was so embarrassing for Democrats that Mike Pence, Mr Trump's Republican vice-presidential nominee, screened it during a campaign rally in New Hampshire. Later, a Hassan campaign spokesperson said that Mrs Hassan did consider Mrs Clinton trustworthy.
Mrs Ayotte is walking an even finer line when it comes to her own party leader. Her official position is that she will vote for Mr Trump, but she isn’t endorsing him. She is, she has said, voting for the television reality star even though she disagrees with many of the positions he holds and the language he has used during the campaign. Mrs Hassan, naturally, accuses her opponent of trying to have it both ways.
When Mrs Ayotte was herself interviewed on CNN she dodged a question about whether she trusted Mr Trump with the nuclear codes. But she was so critical of the Republican nominee in August that he ridiculed her soon afterwards in an interview with the Washington Post. So outraged were potential Trump donors by his comments in that interview about Mrs Ayotte as well as about Paul Ryan, the House Speaker, and John McCain, the senior Republican senator from Arizona, that within days Mr Trump found himself endorsing all three over their more conservative Republican primary challengers.
In many ways, the signs for Mrs Ayotte do not look good. New Hampshire has voted Democratic in five out of the last six presidential elections. Mr Trump has never led Mrs Clinton in a single poll here. Should Mrs Clinton do well in New Hampshire it would continue the pattern of Democrats winning in New Hampshire during presidential elections, while they concede losses to Republicans during the mid-terms. But like in other swing states the race has been getting tighter to the point where the most recent poll from NBC News and theWall Street Journal has the contest tied. As Mr Trump has fared better in state polls so too has Mrs Ayotte.
Of course, the candidates themselves spend most of their time talking about issues other than their rival's unpopular party leader. Both are fond of stressing how they work with members of the other party. Both speak often of the state's opioid problem, as well as how they would boost the economy.
It is not surprising that a high-profile race between two accomplished women is taking place in New Hampshire. In 2012, the state was the first in American history to send a delegation to Washington comprised entirely of women—that is likely to happen again after November’s election. Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, the state’s other senator, is the first to American woman to serve as both a governor and a senator.
Their political talents will be on show in the closing weeks, when Mrs Ayotte and Mrs Hassan are scheduled to debate six times, at a rate almost one per week. They will no doubt be asked about health care reform, abortion and gun control among other subjects for which they will have prepared for many long hours. But none of that will matter much if the presidential contest takes a dramatic turn one way or another. The New Hampshire Senate race will probably follow.
