Shaheen Asks Brown To Sign Pledge Limiting Outside Money In The New Hampshire Senate Race

Former Massachusetts Senator has been toying with the idea of moving to New Hampshire and running for senator for several months -- and now it looks like he is going to do it. Last Friday, he officially formed an "exploratory committee" to enter that campaign against incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen. He hasn't officially filed any papers yet, but candidates don't create exploratory committees unless that are serious about running.

And Senator Shaheen immediately asked Brown to sign a pledge to limit the amount of outside PAC money that either candidate could have spent on their behalf in the race. She signed the pledge herself and sent it to Brown, but he has yet to reply. The pledge would be like a pact Brown agreed to with Senator Elizabeth Warren, when the two squared off in Massachusetts. The pledge would require a candidate to give half of the amount of outside money spent on their behalf to a charity of their opponent's choice.

The pledge was pretty effective in the Massachusetts race -- a race that Brown lost. That's why I seriously doubt Brown will agree to it this time. I think he would probably have lost the Massachusetts race anyway (since Massachusetts is a blue state and Warren was an excellent candidate), but I imagine he'll want to take every advantage he can get this time (including outside PAC money (most of which would probably go to help him instead of Shaheen). In fact, as soon as he announced the formation of his exploratory committee, the right-wing Super-PAC said they would be spending at least $650,000 on his behalf in New Hampshire, and I'm sure other right-wing Super-PACs will also spend big there to try and unseat Shaheen.

And a recent poll shows that Brown may need all the help he can get. The Suffolk University Poll was released recently (having been done between February 27th and March 5th of 800 likely New Hampshire voters, with a 3.5 point margin of error), and it shows Shaheen with a pretty commanding lead at the present time over Brown (52% to 39%) -- a lead of 13 points.

Rasmussen has also done a poll pitting Brown against Shaheen. That poll (done on March 12th and 13th of 750 likely New Hampshire voters, with a 4 point margin of error) is a little closer, but not much. They have Shaheen ahead of Brown 50% to 41%.

And one more poll has been released now on this race -- the American Research Group Poll (done between March 13th and 16th of 533 registered New Hampshire voters, with a 4.2 point margin of error). This one has Shaheen at 50% and Brown at 38%. That makes three polls with very similar numbers, meaning Brown really does have some significant ground to make up.

(The caricature above of Scott Brown was done by the wonderful DonkeyHotey.)

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In that same Suffolk University Poll, they asked 426 likely Republican primary voters (with a 4.8 point margin of error) who their preference was to be the presidential nominee in 2016. The chart below shows the current feeling among New Hampshire Republicans. They seem to be as divided as their fellow Republicans in other states.