A lack of public support for the US bombing campaign in Iran appears to be adding to the political headwinds facing Republicans in New Hampshire ahead of the midterm elections, according to data released Monday by the Saint Anselm College Survey Center.
An outright majority of registered voters in the state (59 percent) oppose the war — including 95 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of undeclared voters, and 20 percent of Republicans — according to a survey of 1,491 people conducted last week.
Those numbers, combined with domestic economic concerns, help to explain why Democrats appear to be gaining ground in New Hampshire, according to Neil Levesque, executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College.
“War and economic uncertainty tend to hurt the incumbent party,” he said.
The survey found a notable shift in how voters responded when asked generally which party’s candidate would get their vote if the congressional elections were held now. Democrats outperformed Republicans by 8 percentage points (49 percent to 41 percent) on this “generic ballot” question in March, doubling the 4-point lead (46 percent to 42 percent) they had in November, when this survey was last conducted.
These numbers come as Democrats hope to hang onto all four seats in New Hampshire’s congressional delegation, despite Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s impending retirement triggering wide open contests for two of those seats.
Representative Chris Pappas, who represents the 1st Congressional District, has a commanding lead in the Democratic primary for Shaheen’s seat in the Senate. Meanwhile, former US senators John E. Sununu and Scott Brown are competing for the Republican nomination.
Sununu, who secured President Trump’s endorsement in early February, leads Brown by 21 percentage points (49 percent to 28 percent), according to the Saint Anselm survey. (A poll conducted in January by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center found Sununu with a similar lead in the GOP race.)
Hypothetical matchups in the Saint Anselm survey data suggest Pappas may be on track to beat either Sununu or Brown in the general election, though his current lead over Sununu (46 percent to 43 percent) is barely larger than the margin of sampling error (2.5 percentage points).
Although voter sentiment appears to be shifting to favor Democrats in federal races, first-term Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte still appears to have an early advantage in her 2026 bid for reelection.
In hypothetical matchups with the Democratic candidates, Ayotte is leading Cinde Warmington by 7 percentage points (46 percent to 39 percent), and she’s leading Jonathan Kiper by 14 points (45 percent to 31 percent), according to the Saint Anselm survey.
Steven Porter can be reached at steven.porter@globe.com. Follow him @reporterporter.
