According to Research 2000's polling, conducted for the DailyKos website, the race to replace retiring Senator Judd Gregg is tight no matter who has the Republican nomination.  If former Congressman Charlie Bass is the Republican, he trails Second District Congressman Paul Hodes by five points, 42%-37%.  If Attorney General Kelly Ayotte is the nominee, she leads Hodes by a point, 39%-38%.

Democrats seem convinced that they can make hay out of Ayotte's decision to resign her seat to run, by comparing her to Sarah Palin and for breaking a pledge to serve her full term.  But those types of pledges are made and broken all the time, and voters rarely hold that against the candidate.  Ultimately, I think the stronger argument is that she is too conservative for the state, and I think that's the argument that we'll hear a lot more of as we get into 2010.