Liberal New England Tilting GOP's Way in Midterm Races

With just a week to go until the midterm elections, for the first time in ages, the liberal stronghold of New England looks to be turning as red as one of the region's famed lobsters.

In the main race in those states, a New England College poll shows Republican challenger Scott Brown 1.5 points ahead of incumbent Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, in a gap-closing comeback, at 48.3 percent to 46.8 percent. The race is considered to be crucial to Republican hopes to take control of the Senate and is likely to go down to the wire.

The Wall Street Journal took note of the fact that no Republican currently holds a New England House seat, but anticipates that Republicans could gain up to six House seats in the midterms in Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.

A three-race tie-breaker between Republican Frank Guinta and New Hampshire Rep. Carol Shea-Porter seems headed into the GOP category, with Guinta leading Shea-Porter by 6.1 percent at 49 to 42.9 percentage points, according to the New England College poll.

Out of two previous races, each candidate won one. Now, it looks like Guinta has taken his lead beyond the poll's margin of error of 4.16 percent.

In governors' races, only one Republican governor holds office in New England — in Maine, but Massachusetts may be headed Republican for the open seat. The GOP's Charlie Baker is leading Democrat Martha Coakley by 3 points in the RealClearPolitics average of polls.

There's a dead-heat governor's race in Connecticut between incumbent Democrat Dannel Malloy and Republican Tom Foley, who is challenging Malloy for the second time. This time, Foley is up by a squeaky little margin of 0.2 percent in RealClearPolitics' poll average, making the race way too close to call.

In the New Hampshire governor's race, Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan is leading Republican Walt Havenstein by 6.5 percent in the RealClearPolitics average, but the New England College poll found Havenstein to have closed the lead and now is trailing by just 0.3 percent, 47.2 to 46.9 percent.

This caused pollster Dr. Wayne Lesperance to tell Breitbart News, "Hassan has maintained a consistent lead, but over the past week the race has become a toss-up."

The Journal reports, "The potential resurgence of Republicans in the Northeast offers more evidence that the broader political climate this year favors the GOP, with the party likely to expand its majority in the House and potentially wrest control of the Senate."

Former Republican Rep. Charlie Bass from New Hampshire told the Journal, "It hasn’t been great to be a Republican from New England for a long time, but this year is shaping up to be a lot better."

Related Stories:

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• NH Senate Race Centers on Souring of Obama