MANCHESTER, N.H. — Win or lose, Scott Brown is poised to make history Tuesday night.
If the Republican, boosted by a strong national Republican wave, unseats a relatively popular incumbent senator, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, he will become the first person in the modern era to represent more than one state in the US Senate.
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If Brown, who represented Massachusetts in the US Senate as recently as January 2013, falls short, it will be his second loss in his second state in as many years, having been defeated by Democrat Elizabeth Warren in 2012, and is likely to cast the once rising GOP star into the political wilderness.
Brown, who drove his signature GMC pickup truck to a place in American political history in 2010 with his upset win to fill the seat long held by Edward M. Kennedy, was set to arrive at the Radisson Hotel Manchester Downtown Tuesday evening for a election night rally, after a day of campaign stops working to get out the vote.
Shaheen, who voted with her family in Madbury, N.H., this morning, was set to rally with supporters in Manchester as well.
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Brown formally launched his campaign in April and focused squarely on national issues, from immigration to the Islamic State militant group. He worked to tie Shaheen to President Obama, who polls have found has grown increasingly unpopular here.
And he hit the campaign trail with gusto, making hundreds of stops across the state. At almost all of them, he worked to position himself as an agent of change, aiming convince voters that if they were frustrated with Washington’s dysfunction and Obama’s second term, they should for vote for him.
From Concord to Keene, he rarely gave a speech without mentioning that Shaheen votes with the president “99 percent of the time,” an effort to make the president and state’s senior senator the same in voters’ minds.
Shaheen, a former governor and state senator, ran an intensely localized race this year focused on her accomplishments at a granular level. She emphasized the specific actions she has taken to help the Granite State — working to protect this shipyard, build that bridge, get a bill passed that helped this New Hampshire business.
And she went on the attack against Brown, framing him as someone whose values — on issues from women’s rights to job creation — were out of sync with the Granite State.
Though Shaheen rarely made an explicit issue of Brown’s moving his primary residence to his vacation home in Rye, N.H., just last year, she often spoke about it implicitly. A former political operative, Shaheen tried to define Brown as driven by pure ambition and someone who would look out for well-monied interests, rather than average folks.
National Republicans had long hoped Brown, a prolific fundraiser, would enter the race. And when he did, it was immediately seen as a potentially competitive contest. As polling found the race narrowing, third-party groups took increasing notice.
Millions of dollars of outside money poured into the small state, blanketing the airwaves with negative ads and casting the contest as one between an unthinking Obama automaton and a self-interested carpetbagger.
The nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity estimated campaigns and outside groups spent more than $14 million on television advertisements in the New Hampshire US Senate race through Monday, a considerable sum in a state with just 1.3 million people.
The US Senate contest wasn’t the only competitive race on the ballot in New Hampshire Tuesday. Polls have also found the campaigns for the state’s two congressional seats and for governor to be tight.
Results in all are expected to begin trickling in after the final polling places close at 8 p.m.
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joshua.miller@globe.com@jm_bos
Article source: http://www.freep.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/20/nbc-chris-christie-bridge-scandal/15950527/
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Win or lose, Scott Brown is poised to make history Tuesday night.If the Republican, boosted by a strong national Republican wave, unseats a relatively popular incumbent senator, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, he will become the first person in the modern era ...
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