New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen has a cushy 9-percentage point lead over former Massachusetts GOP Sen. Scott Brown as he readies a possible challenge to the incumbent, a new poll showed Monday.
According to
Rasmussen Reports, Shaheen had the support of 50 percent of likely voters in the Granite State, while Brown polled with 41 percent. Four percent told pollsters they like some other candidate in the race and 5 percent were undecided.
The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Brown, who recently moved to New Hampshire from Massachusetts, announced last Friday he'd
formed a committee to explore running for the Senate from his new home state, after the Rasmussen poll was taken on Wednesday and Thursday.
If Brown won the Sept. 9 GOP primary, and defeats Shaheen, he'd be only the third person in history — and the first since the 1870s — to have represented more than one state in the Senate,
Roll Call reported.
Among
other GOP contenders Brown faces in the primary are former Sen. Bob Smith and former state Sen. Jim Rubens.
But one of the biggest hurdles he may have is voter recognition, another poll noted.
According to a University of New Hampshire Survey Center survey in late January, 27 percent of adults in the Granite State didn't know enough about Brown to have an opinion of him, the
Boston Globe reported Saturday.
The poll also found 38 percent had an unfavorable opinion of him, while 27 percent held a favorable opinion.
"... [I]t’s going to take a lot more than simply running on — and espousing — an anti-Obamacare agenda to win the election,"
Town Hall noted of a possible Brown candidacy. "New Hampshire voters need to know, trust and understand the candidates for whom they support."