#

Is there really a bout of BetoMania spreading through the New Hampshire Democratic party?

Democratic Party activist Jay Surdukowski sure hopes so.  The Concord attorney has been pushing for the Texas congressman, Senate candidate, and political phenom to make his way to the Granite State.  Thus far, Rep. O’Rourke (whose real name is Francis Robert) hasn’t responded to any of the invitations from New Hampshire, but the conversation alone is generating news at Politico and CNBC.

(Longtime New Hampshire media hand James Pindell crankily tweeted “Didn’t realize unanswered invites were news but here we are.”)

So, is O’Rourke a real player in New Hampshire? The obvious–and obviously true–answer is that it’s way too early to say. “There’s a lot of chatter and a lot of buzz about a lot of people,” one Democratic insider told NHJournal. “Have I heard Beto’s name? Sure. I’ve also heard Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown.  Most New Hampshire Democrats are waiting to meet these people, look them in the eye, watch them campaign.”

On the other hand, how many of those people have fans posting Facebook pages about them? Or have political activists in New England start a PAC (“Draft Beto 2020”) to encourage them to run?

And then there’s the fact that, despite being a political unknown just a year ago, Rep. O’Rourke is near the top of (very early) polling for the Democratic nomination, ahead of big names like Warren, Harris and Booker.

This weekend, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard–who has actually talked about possibly running in 2020— is coming to New Hampshire to talk to voters. And yet it’s safe to say that more Democrats this week will be talking about the outgoing Congressman from Texas than the incumbent Congresswoman from Hawaii.

Why? In part it’s because O’Rourke is a legitimate political talent.  Jeff Roe, Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign manager, said after his candidate’s narrow victory over Beto: “The Democrats don’t have anybody like him,” Roe said. “I’ve seen all of them. They don’t have anyone of his caliber on the national stage. I pray for the soul of anyone who has to run against him in Iowa in 453 days.”

But it’s also more than that. O’Rourke is a talented progressive politician, at a moment when the party’s base is hungry for progressive leadership.  Bernie Sanders hit the right notes, but voting for Bernie was voting for the progressive platform alone. O’Rourke brings the Left’s ideology, but adds charisma, skills and–let’s face it–sex appeal.

“Beto is exciting, he’s articulate, he’s passionate,” New Hampshire progressive activist and broadcaster Arnie Arnesen told NHJournal.  “But he also used his time in the limelight to speak to the future. So even though he was running against one of the most hated Republicans there is, he didn’t use that fact as an excuse to moderate his message or soften his agenda.”

“And that’s a wonderful thing,” Arnesen said.

Not everyone agrees. Chicago Mayor and former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel responded to the Beto craze this way:

“If Beto O’Rourke wants to go and run for president, God bless him, he should put his hat in and make his case. But, he lost. You don’t usually promote a loser to the top of party.”

Longtime New Hampshire Democratic player Jim Demers, who has publicly expressed support for Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ),  is more moderated in his views:

“I think Beto O’Rourke has a few interesting options. Some people would like to see him run for President, others think he is in a very strong position to challenge John Cornyn for the Senate seat in Texas in 2020,” Demers told NHJournal.

“Regardless, I hope Democrats will take the pledge not to devour each other in the presidential race and to stand united when the nominee is selected. The goal is to change the occupant in The White House, period.”

Are New Hampshire Democrats ready to give that job to a guy from Texas? Whose entire political resume is three terms in Congress and a losing bid for the US Senate?

“I’m not sure I couldn’t be convinced Beto O’Rourke should be President,” the Democratic insider told NHJournal.

And given how many big Democratic names are on the 2020 list, and how little New Hampshire Democrats actually know about O’Rourke, that’s something.

“If Democrats pick Colin Van Ostern today, they are voting to elect Secretary of State [Bill] O’Brien tomorrow.”

That’s the warning of one longtime New Hampshire politico to NHJournal.com regarding Tuesday’s legislative vote for Secretary of State. Once Democrats turn the job into a plum gig for loyal partisans, it will never go back.

This is the sentiment many NH political activists and observers expressed to NHJournal as the Secretary of State election approaches.

“I hate to be alarmist, but I really believe that if New Hampshire loses its place as the ‘First in the Nation’ primary, America loses something. And if New Hampshire loses our reputation for having an even-handed, non-partisan Secretary of State, we will be in real danger of losing that primary.”

So says political consultant Josh McElveen, who has been pointing out the dangers posed by Colin Van Ostern’s openly-partisan advocacy for the office. He’s organizing a rally on Monday morning at 10:30am outside the LLB in Concord to remind legislators of what is at stake.

“If we have a Secretary of State with a partisan agenda, one who’s raised more than $250,000 dollars from partisan sources—people who gave that money with some sort of expectations—those outside of New Hampshire who want to take away our ‘First in the Nation’ status will use that against us,” McElveen told NHJournal.

Many Democrats reject the argument that electing Van Ostern in any way endangers New Hampshire’s place on the primary calendar. “Gardner did not create NH’s reputation as a state where anyone can run for President and launch a national campaign,” former New Hampshire state rep and outspoken Democratic activist Judy Reardon tweeted. “See primaries before he became SoS – 1968 (McCarthy) and 1972 (McGovern) for example.”

But the argument against Van Ostern isn’t that he’s a Democrat—Gardner is, too. Instead, the concern is over the fact that Van Ostern is a partisan political activist who was his party’s nominee for governor in 2016 and is widely expected to run for elective office in the future.

“I have kept my pledge not to use this office as a stepping stone. I’ve never run for office and I never would,” Secretary Gardner told NHJournal. “My opponent has only pledged not to run ‘in 2020.’”

At the Union-Leader, Kevin Landrigan reminds readers that Van Ostern began his campaign for the Secretary of State’s job with a pledge to “do everything in my power to help elect a legislative majority in support of [his] platform. I intend to recruit and campaign and raise money for these candidates,” Van Ostern said at the time.

He soon backed away from that pledge, but as Landrigan reports, his allies and former aides stepped up and money flowed to Democratic legislative candidates, anyway. This is hardly a surprise given Van Ostern’s background as a political operative.

Notably absent are New Hampshire’s U.S. Senate Democrats, neither of whom have endorsed Van Ostern for Secretary of State despite supporting his previous candidacies.

“This is a matter for the Legislature to decide,” Sen. Maggie Hassan said in a statement, while a spokesperson for Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s office simply said she “is not getting involved in the race.”

“If the Secretary of State’s job devolves into a partisan political office with partisan practices like fundraising and campaigning, it will never go back,” McElveen said.

A Republican state house insider had a similar message for NHJournal: “How many times have the Democrats had control of the legislature? Something like less than 10% of the last 100 years. A vote for Van Ostern now is a vote for a hardcore conservative in 2020 when the GOP takes over the legislature.”

And another GOP activist put it even more bluntly: “They have no idea what they’re going to unleash. What—do they think we’re going to watch them elect someone like Van Ostern, and then when we take back the House, we’ll bring Billy [Gardner] out of retirement?”

A GOP majority in 2020 is hardly a certainty. What is all but certain, however, is that there will be a Republican legislative majority in the New Hampshire General Court again. And if history is any guide, in the near future.

Democrats may want to keep that in mind as they cast their votes on Tuesday.

During the early days of the New Hampshire First District Democratic primary, none of the (at least) nine congressional candidates would commit to supporting former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s return to power if, as expected, their party took control of the chamber.

Eventually, just one of the candidates, state rep. Mark MacKenzie, would publicly endorse Pelosi for speaker before the primary vote.

He came in eighth. 

The eventual nominee, Democrat Chris Pappas, then spent the entire general election dodging the issue in his campaign against Republican Eddie Edwards.  Pappas won handily on November 6th, but weeks later still refused to reveal his intentions regarding the leader of his caucus.

Until today.

This morning, Pappas finally announced what many NH pundits suspected was true throughout his campaign: #HesWithHer. He will join his fellow New Hampshire Rep. Annie Kuster and vote for a return to the Pelosi era.

“After careful consideration and discussion with many constituents and future colleagues in Congress, I have decided to support Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House,” Pappas said in a statement released today.   “I believe she is best equipped to lead the House at this point in our history.

“My conversations with her convinced me she will lead with fairness and empower the incoming class to play a significant role in the work ahead. We must get down to doing the people’s business quickly, and we should start by reforming the way Washington works, lowering the cost of health care and creating an economy that allows everyone to succeed.”

“I will work with anyone, anywhere to do what’s right for the New Hampshire district I represent, and I will stand up to anyone—from President Trump to leaders in Congress—when they’re wrong.”

Despite the fact that the movement to stop a Pelosi speakership has been led by his fellow centrists in the party, a low-key moderate like Chris Pappas was always an unlikely rebel. In the primary, he ran against a field of strong women candidates for the chance to replace a Congresswoman, Carol Shea-Porter, in a state that currently has an entirely female federal delegation.

A vote against the first-ever woman Speaker–or any powerful woman, for that matter–was never in the cards.

So what happened in New Hampshire on Tuesday? Here are all the numbers you need to know:

RECORD SETTING TURNOUT

Total turnout was about 580,000 ballots cast, “the first time we’ve broken the half a million mark in a midterm,” Secretary of State Bill Gardner told NHJournal, “and the first time we’ve had a midterm turnout higher than any presidential primary.”

“All that, on a day when we had bad weather, too. If people have the will to vote, they will make the effort–rain or no rain.”

NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTERS LOVE TO SWING

There were 573,735 votes cast in the race for governor: Gov. Chris Sununu, 302,838; Democrat Molly Kelly, 262,408.

Republican Sununu’s margin over Democrat Kelly: 40,430.

A total of 560,034 votes were cast for the major-party Congressional candidates: 310,320 for the two Democrats; 249,714 for the two Republicans.

The Pappas/Kuster margin over Edwards/Negron: 60,606.

That’s a 100,000 “swing vote” margin just in the top-tier races–about 18 percent of voters split their tickets for governor and Congress.

Or put another way, Republican Chris Sununu outperformed the two GOP congressional candidates by 53,000 votes, while Molly Kelly underperformed her Democratic colleagues by 48,000.

“It’s not that unusual, actually,” Gardner told NHJournal. “When Ronald Reagan ran in 1980, he won New Hampshire by a 2-1 margin. The same year, the Democrat running for governor won 2-1, too.”

(NHJournal checked, and Gardner was right: Reagan got 58 percent of the vote in New Hampshire in 1980, and incumbent Democratic governor Hugh Gallen got 59 percent.)

GOP TURNOUT WAS GOOD. DEMOCRATIC TURNOUT WAS BETTER

“The Democrats did an unbelievable job of drilling down into the lower-tier GOTV universes,” Greg Moore, Executive Director of Americans for Prosperity-New Hampshire, told NHJournal. “Net-net, they brought out 320,000 of their folks and the conservatives brought out 260,000.

“To put that into perspective, Eddie Edwards in the NH-01 race got 6,000 more votes than Republican Frank Guinta did in 2014–and Guinta won by 9,000 votes. Edwards lost by 24,000.”

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT. AND MOSTLY DEMOCRAT.

Billionaire Tom Steyer has been bragging for more than a year about the $1 million or so he planned to spend in New Hampshire getting college students out of their dorms and into the polls. His organization NextGen America had almost 40 paid workers covering the campuses, and according to NextGen’s New Hampshire comms person Kristen Morris, it worked. She tweeted:

THE GOP NEEDED A BIGGER WIN BY SUNUNU

It’s easy after a wave election–and that’s certainly what happened in New Hampshire–to simply be grateful the party held onto the governor’s office. But several NHGOP pros have noted that the governor’s race was closer than it should have been, and the rest of the ticket suffered.

“With a popular incumbent governor running for re-election against a hitherto unknown former state senator, Molly Kelly significantly out-raised and outspent him,” veteran GOP strategist Tom Rath told NHJournal. “And that should never happen.  Keeping the governor’s race close allowed the Democrats to make big gains down ballot.”

SHOW THEM THE MONEY

Final numbers aren’t in, but it’s clear that New Hampshire Democrats had a huge financial advantage, in part because of a massive amount of money donated through the ActBlue program at a national level (more than $1 billion in small-dollar donations alone), some of which made its way to New Hampshire.  And in part because Republicans did not raise the resources they needed.

“We’ve been outspent in the past,” outgoing Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley told NHJournal, “but not like this. This time it would appear our Democratic colleagues had so much money that it almost didn’t matter how they spent it.”

“Drilling down as deeply in their GOTV efforts as the Democrats did takes tons of money,” Greg Moore notes.

And GOP strategist Mike Dennehy is even more blunt: “If New Hampshire Republicans don’t figure out fundraising, they can kiss this state goodbye.”

ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL, NH VOTERS WANTED TO VOTE DEMOCRAT. 

At the Union-Leader, Kevin Landrigan picks up on the fascinating story of Manchester Republican Ed Sapienza.

“A lifelong Democrat, Sapienza changed his party affiliation to the GOP last spring to run for Hillsborough County Register of Deeds,” Landrigan reported. When nobody filed to run as a Democrat, some friends of Sapienza wrote him in during the primary and so his name appeared on Tuesday as both the Republican and Democratic nominee.

“In rock-ribbed Republican Merrimack for example, Sapienza the Democrat got 500 more votes than Sapienza the Republican did,” Landrigran noted.

That’s 500 more votes simply for being a Democrat.  That number pretty much sums up the 2018 midterm election in New Hampshire.

Having been forced out of her position as Coos County Democratic Party chairwoman, the former domestic partner of State Sen. Jeff Woodburn–and the alleged victim of his violence–wants her fellow Democrats to know: She’s not the problem.

“My client did not report [Woodburn’s attacks],” her attorney Patricia LaFrance told NHJournal.com “She was contacted by the authorities who asked her if something was wrong, and who told her they had reason to believe something was happening to her. She didn’t bring this. They [the authorities] brought it to her.”

LaFrance pointed out that this information was made public during the recent court hearing on Sen. Woodburn’s criminal domestic violence case, and yet her client is still being punished by the community. “She got an email, sort of like a friendly warning, that her own party was planning–and these were the exact words–“a political lynching” for her,” LaFrance told NHJournal.

“I spent 18 years in a prosecutor’s office, and I know from experience it’s hard enough getting victims of domestic and sexual violence to come forward. To see a woman treated like this…in 2018? It’s unbelievable.”

LaFrance’s client was allegedly forced from her county leadership position over Facebook postings on the Coos County Democratic Party page highlighting the issue of domestic violence and violence against women–a problematic issue when the party’s nominee for state senate is facing criminal charges for allegedly punching and repeatedly biting his former domestic partner.

At an August meeting of the Coos County Democratic Committee after Woodburn’s arrest, his fellow Democrats rejected a motion to call for his resignation. And the New Hampshire Democratic Party says it stands behind their decision to oust his victim from her county chairmanship.

“Let me be clear: The party maintains its decision to withdraw support for the District One nominee (Woodburn),” NH Democratic Party chairman Ray Buckley said in a statement. However, Buckley denied that he or the state Democratic Party had any knowledge of the harassment or threats she has received from local Woodburn supporters.  “Whoever did this was not acting on behalf of, or authorized by, the New Hampshire Democratic Party. We do not support these actions, and as soon as we learn of more details regarding this, we will address them immediately,” Buckley said in his statement.

The NH GOP wasted no time responding.  “The intimidation tactics by Ray Buckley and the Democrat political leadership against this individual are reprehensible,” GOP state party chair Wayne MacDonald said in a statement. The NHGOP also released a series of Facebook screen grabs showing prominent state Democrats like Rep. Steve Shurtleff (D-Penacook) and Sen. Martha Fuller Clark (D-Portsmouth) celebrating Woodburn’s victory over his female opponent in the September 11th Democratic primary.

Woodburn’s case–which involves multiple accounts of domestic assault and violence— comes at an unfortunate time for New Hampshire Democrats, who have been working hard to increase their support among women, have nominated a woman gubernatorial nominee (former state senator Molly Kelly), and have repeatedly attempted to link incumbent Gov. Chris Sununu and the NHGOP to allegations of misogyny and anti-woman attitudes from President Trump and the national GOP.  The tacit support for Woodburn’s candidacy feeds charges of hypocrisy from their GOP counterparts.

Molly Kelly, a political ally of Woodburn’s in the past, hasn’t helped her party’s cause. Though she offered a pro forma call for Woodburn to resign when he was first arrested, she refused to join other Democrats in endorsing or campaigning for Woodburn’s primary opponent.

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has ended her drought in New Hampshire’s First Congressional District. As reported here at NHJournal, for weeks not a single one of the eleven (count ’em, 11!) Democratic candidates in the primary would commit on the record to supporting Pelosi for Speaker of the House.

Not anymore! Thursday night at a candidate event hosted by the Hampton, NH Democrats, one of the candidates came out of the Pelosi closet.  Meet N.H. State Representative and candidate for Congress, Mark MacKenzie, who issued this statement to NHJournal:

Nancy Pelosi has served with distinction in the United State Congress for over 30 years. She was the first woman in US history to be elected as the Speaker. She has supported countless Democrats in this country helping them get elected.  The role Representative Pelosi will play in the future will be decided by the new Congress. Nancy Pelosi deserves the respect of this nation for her faithful service to this country.  My focus is on getting elected to represent the first CD and this is where my attention is focused.

So there you go, Ms. Former Speaker–you’ve got a supporter!  Interestingly, none of the three women running in the Democratic primary have endorsed Pelosi for Speaker. One of them, Rep. Mindi Messmer, has said explicitly that it’s time for Democrats to make a change.

Watch for yourself courtesy of the twitter feed of intrepid NH political reporter Paul Steinhauser:

Politico is reporting that Deval Patrick is “inching closer toward deciding on a 2020 presidential run.”

Quoting the former Massachusetts governor’s longtime political advisor John Walsh, Politico is feeding a narrative they’ve nursed for a nearly a year now–that Barack Obama and his political team want Patrick to pick up the presidential mantle.

Today, Politico reports that Patrick “is really thinking about running but hasn’t decided yet,” according to Walsh.  Last August, Politico ran a story entitled: “Obama’s Inner Circle Is Urging Deval Patrick to Run.”

According to the August piece, “Barack Obama is nudging him to run” and Patrick is “ObamaWorld’s clear and away 2020 favorite.”  At the time, Patrick was more circumspect, saying  “it’s way, way too soon to be making plans for 2020.” Fascinatingly, he gave the interview from his post-governor gig at Bain Capital, the (evil) venture capital firm founded by another former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney.

Some big-dollar Democratic donors who play beltway politics are reportedly pushing Patrick, too.  And Patrick advisors like David Axelrod say Deval has early state advantages due to his experience campaigning in small-town central and western Massachusetts (helps in Iowa) and the eight years as governor of New Hampshire’s southern neighbor.

However, as NHJournal has reported, early polling has Patrick in single digits in the Granite State (despite eight years of coverage in the area’s biggest TV market), and when Sen. Liz Warren’s name is added, Patrick’s support drops to 4 percent.

Do polls six months before the midterms really matter? Of course not. But it does show that, for the moment, Washington, DC politicos and publications are more excited about the Patrick run that New Hampshire’s Democrats are.

Democratic State Sen. Lou D’Allesandro (author of the new book Lion Of The New Hampshire Senate) tells NHJournal: “I don’t think Patrick would capture the attention of NH Democrats.  He didn’t spend a lot of time here and I don’t believe he has been back since he left office.  As you know, the Bernie followers are very active.  It remains to be seen as to what the field will look like.”

UPDATE: Longtime Democratic activist and media personality Jim Braude tells NHJournal that Patrick would be a strong candidate in the Granite State. “Deval Patrick is maybe the best campaigner I’ve ever seen,” says Braude, who along with his broadcasting partner Margery Eagan hosted Gov. Patrick’s monthly “Ask The Governor” radio program during his eight years in office.

“Speechifying and one-on-one, he’s tailor made for Iowa and New Hampshire. Throw in the fact that he’s a liberal who business types can relate to and you’ve got a candidate,” Braude says.

The “Politics and Eggs” breakfast at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics is one of the compulsory events in Granite State politics for anyone considering a presidential run.  Conservative journalist and national leader of the #NeverTrump movement, Bill Kristol, will be making an appearance–and firing up the 2020 rumor mill–on Wednesday, May 23rd.

NHJournal’s Michael Graham caught up with Kristol at one of his Harvard Yard haunts on the eve of his speech for a quick Q&A:

MG: My first question for you is this: Is Bill Kristol coming to “Politics and Eggs” to formally announce his candidacy in the 2020 presidential race?

BK:  It’s tempting, it’s tempting. But then I’d be laughed out of New Hampshire and I’d be slipping back across the border to Massachusetts in about 12 minutes. So I think I won’t do that.

I’m just talking about my analysis of the political situation. It’s always great to be in New Hampshire because people here are so interested in national politics, and they follow it much more closely than almost any other state because they’re so conscious of their “First in the Nation” primary. And I do think the fact that independents can vote in either primary–and so many New Hampshire voters are independents–means they tend to follow both parties. In some states the Republicans follow Republican stories, and the Democrats have the Democratic stories. In New Hampshire, everyone follows everything.

MG: Which potential 2020 candidate best matches the mood of the Democratic electorate?

BK:  I think there are several moods going at once, which is why it’s complicated. There’s obviously a ‘We hate, loathe and despise Trump and we will reward the person who hates, loathes and despises him the most’ [mood].  There’s also a ‘Look, we’ve got a win’ [mood], with Democrats saying ‘We cannot afford to lose to this guy and, incidentally, we lost because we were out of touch with parts of middle America. Some of those concerns were legitimate, and some of those concerns are traditional Democratic concerns–stagnant wages and stuff like that–and so we need somebody who can speak to them.’

That leads you in two pretty different directions.

The conventional wisdom among Republicans in Washington is the Left has all the energy. Everything’s going Left. The empirical evidence so far in the primaries is a little mixed, I would say. Some moderates have won primaries. Some Lefties have won some primaries, and some have just been extremely close like the Nebraska [NE-2] primary. So I’m sort of open-minded about that debate on the Democratic side.

MG: What about Republicans?  Trump’s approval is back in the upper 80s, approaching 90 percent among Republicans. Of those Republicans who are dissatisfied–maybe they’re reluctant Trump supporters, whatever. Are they angry at Trump, or do the just want their party to go in a different direction?

BK:  I think Trump supporters–let’s just say it’s 80, 85 percent of the Republicans–are split into two categories: Half of them, some 40 percent of the Republican Party, are Trump loyalists. They believe in him. They are proud to have voted for Him. They hate his enemies and they like the fact that he’s shaking things up.  But about half of Trump supporters are reluctant Trump supporters. They voted for someone else in the primary–Bush or Cruz or Rubio.  They mostly voted for Trump in the general election because of Hillary and judges and so forth.

They support some of the things Trump has done, but they’re not Trump loyalists and I think they’re open to the following argument, one which you can’t really make now, you have to make it the day after the midterms:

It goes like this: ‘You voted for Trump. We’re not gonna criticize that. You support a lot of things he does. You think a lot of the criticisms of him are unfair. We’re not going to quarrel with that.  But–do you really want to do this for another four years?

It’s a little crazy. It’s a little chaotic. He comes with some downside risks. In foreign policy and and other things, maybe you could just like pocket the gains and get a more normal, so to speak,  Republican or Conservative.’

I think that message would have–could have– more appeal after Election Day this year. Right now it sounds like, ‘Well, you’re just anti-Trump. We’ve got to rally to Trump, we’ve got to defeat the Democrats.’  But I think November 7th [the day after the midterms], everything changes.  Because the question becomes not a retrospective question of were you right to vote for trump or his critics, or ‘what about Hillary?’ It becomes a prospective question. What do you want going forward?

MG: Last question: The Democratic ticket that you think Republicans should be the most afraid of in 2020?

BK: That’s a good question. These things are actually harder to predict.  I’m inclined to give the conventional answer, which I think is right, which is the more moderate the candidate Democrats nominate, the easier it is to win back some Republican voters and independents.  I guess I have the kind of conventional view that that’s the most dangerous thing for the Republicans.

But you know, sometimes history fools you.  Everyone thought Reagan would be easier to defeat than a more moderate Republican.  Take Elizabeth Warren. [Republicans think] That’d be great. We can demonize her. She’s scary. She’s left wing.

Well, I don’t know.  Maybe she could run a campaign that was pretty intelligent and get the best of both worlds: The Hillary Clinton appeal, first woman president; And some of the Sanders energy. Look, she’s a Harvard law professor. She’s not crazy.

It could be like Obama. [Independent voters saying] ‘She’s a little more liberal that I like, but she comes from modest origins.’ So I think [my fellow conservatives] may underrate Warren a little bit.

Former–and possibly future–Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has already become an issue in New Hampshire’s midterm elections. And not in a good way.

As reported at NHJournal, of the nine Democrats seeking their party’s nomination in the First Congressional District primary, the number who have committed to supporting Pelosi for speaker is…zero.  As it turns out, they may be on to something.

A new Morning Consult/Politico poll finds that both among Democrats nationally and voters in the liberal Northeast, Rep. Pelosi (D-CA) is surprisingly unpopular. When asked “In thinking about the 2018 midterm elections in Congress, would an endorsement from each of the following make you more or less likely to vote for a candidate?” an astonishing 49 percent of Hillary Clinton supporters said an endorsement from Pelosi would made them less likely to support a candidate. Only 38 percent said it would make them more likely.

More locally, 58 percent of registered voters in the deep-blue Northeast would be less likely to support Pelosi-backed candidates.

Morning Consult also reports another disturbing trend for Democrats:  Trump voters are more motivated to vote in the November midterms than Hillary Clinton voters, 68 to 58 percent.  More broadly, they report 84% of Republicans describe themselves as motivated, while 80 percent of Democrats say the same.

One glimmer of good news for Democrats in New Hampshire and beyond:

The poll also shows Democrats leading on the generic congressional ballot by 5 percentage points, 43 percent to 38 percent. That is slightly closer than Democrats’ 7-point lead in last week’s poll, 42 percent to 35 percent.

The only question Democrats should be asking themselves about taking control of the House of Representatives in 2018 is “What color does Nancy Pelosi want for the drapes?”  At least, that’s the conventional wisdom. Add together the fact that it’s Trump’s first term (first-term midterms are usually bad for the party in the White House); Republicans have lost far more special election since Trump’s election than they’ve won: and the fact that, well, it’s President Trump, and it would appear that a Democratic House majority is a 2019 lock.

And yet…

Small data points keep appearing that give the Republican faithful reason to hope. The most recent is a new Reuters/Ipsos poll showing younger voters’ support for the Democratic Party fading as the midterms draw nearer.

Enthusiasm for the Democratic Party is waning among millennials as its candidates head into the crucial midterm congressional elections, according to the Reuters/Ipsos national opinion poll.  The online survey of more than 16,000 registered voters ages 18 to 34 shows their support for Democrats over Republicans for Congress slipped by about 9 percentage points over the past two years, to 46 percent overall.

And they increasingly say the Republican Party is a better steward of the economy.  That presents a potential problem for Democrats who have come to count on millennials as a core constituency – and will need all the loyalty they can get to achieve a net gain of 23 seats to capture control of the U.S. House of Representatives in November.

NHJournal has already reported why younger voters have less of an impact on New Hampshire elections than almost any other state. However, any sign that anti-GOP sentiment might be fading is good news for embattled Republicans hoping to pick up a congressional seat in New Hampshire this year.

Other recent pro-GOP data points include:

     Democrats’ Lead On Generic Ballot Has Gone From “Humongous” To Merely “Big”

In February there were polls showing Democrats had a 14-point lead on the question “Would you rather be represented by a Democrat or a Republican in Congress?” That’s a huge number, historically speaking. But the latest Real Clear Politics average shows the Democrats’ advantage down to 6.8 percent, and the trend is narrowing.  It’s still a sizable lead—about the same lead the GOP had just before the 2010 midterms when they won 63 seats and took control of the House.  So while the number may be improving….it’s still bad.

     The GOP And Its Allies Are Raising Lots of Money.

The Republican National Committee recently announced it raised $39 million in the first three months of 2018, including a record $13.8 million haul in March. It’s part of a $250 million campaign for the midterms. Meanwhile, the NRA just announced it set a one-month record in fundraising for its political arm. It’s true that Democrats are also raising a lot of money but, given the enthusiasm gap, the GOP can be encouraged by the fact that they’re keeping it close.

     Trump’s Approval Rating Seems To Have Stabilized at “Mediocre.”

Nate Silver, the notorious numbers-cruncher at FiveThirtyEight.com made an interesting observation at the end of April: The Trump presidency may be volatile, but his numbers are not.

“Trump’s approval rating has been between 40.0% and 41.1% for 55 consecutive days in our tracking. It really doesn’t move very much at all. And it’s not like there hasn’t been news during this period.”

Now add in the fact that the overwhelmingly-negative media coverage makes some percentage of Trump supporters unwilling to admit it to pollsters—say, around 3 percent—and you’ve got a president whose real approval is around 45 percent. Not great, but not a disaster, either. 

All in all, Sean Trende, Senior Elections Analyst for RealClearPolitics told NHPolitics.com:  “Trump’s improving job numbers and the narrowing generic ballot suggest that Republicans have a fighting chance, though not much of one.”

Which is why so many GOP candidates in 2018 are recalling the words of that great political philosopher, Lloyd Christmas: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance…”