Ayotte holding narrow lead over Lamontagne

posted at 9:30 am on September 15, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

The final primary night may last a little while longer, at least in New Hampshire, where the Republican nomination has resulted in a photo finish.  With over 85% of the precincts counted, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte has taken a lead of less than a thousand votes over Ovide Lamontagne.  The final result may be so close that it will take a recount to confirm:

Five hours after polls closed in New Hampshire, former state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte was clinging to a 1-point lead over surging local tea party favorite Ovide Lamontagne early Wednesday morning in the Granite State’s Republican Senate primary.

As of 1:45 a.m., Ayotte led 38.4 percent to Lamontagne’s 37.3 percent with 81 percent of precincts reporting, according to the Associated Press.

Should she hold on to her slim margin, Ayotte — the pick of the national Republican establishment — would become the favorite in the general election contest against Democratic Rep. Paul W. Hodes in the race to replace retiring Sen. Judd Gregg.

Politico’s tracking has 85.4% of the precincts counted and a narrower lead for Ayotte, 38.2% to 37.4%, as of 7:35 this morning.  The Union Leader shows the vote totals giving Ayotte slightly less than a thousand-vote margin, which in a race where a little over 100,000 votes were probably cast, might not be significant enough for Lamontagne to accept at face value.  Assuming the lead doesn’t change again — Lamontangne led for most of the evening — I’d guess that we may not lock in the GOP nominee for another few days.

The rest of the New Hampshire results are more solid.  Frank Guinta ended up on top of a crowded field to challenge Carol Shea-Porter for her House seat in NH-01.  Guinta edged businessman Rich Ashooh, who made sure to pledge his support to Guinta before the evening was over.  Sean Mahoney, the self-funding conservative, dropped to third in the race.  In NH-02, former Rep. Charlie Bass won another close race against Jennifer Horn for the GOP nomination.  He will face Obama delegate and Democratic Party activist Annie Kuster for Paul Hodes’ vacant seat.

Hopefully, when the counting resumes this morning, we will see a clear-cut winner in the Senate primary as well.  However, New Hampshire and other late-primary states might want to rethink their scheduling if this drags out for another week or so.  September primaries leave everyone with a short timeframe for actual debate on the issues, and no time for a recount and/or challenge if needed.

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Comment pages: 1 2

Been to many TEA party rallies, have you? Or are you merely engaging in rectal speak?

As usual…

JohnGalt23 on May 24, 2013 at 1:46 PM

As I just posted HotairLib has their whole head up their six o clock.

hamradio on May 24, 2013 at 2:43 PM

Who wrote the speech? Or are you just praising the messenger?

mixplix on May 24, 2013 at 2:57 PM

MSNBC consensus: Obama’s speech was historic, amazing, “one of the best of his presidency”

Connect the dots: journolist meeting by invitation only at the White House on, what Tuesday?, “big”speech by Obama on Thursday, lame stream media fawning over speech on Friday. Who would have seen that coming, huh?

parke on May 24, 2013 at 2:58 PM

They need the “war on terror” in order to further erode our Constitutional freedoms and to deflect criticism from the administration’s and Federal government’s ongoing corruption.

They are just trying to massage it so that they don’t offend the Muslims, international Libtards and their own sensibilities anymore than necessary.

A few Muslim terrorists here and there are quite expendable to this Administration despite their sympathies for them. These drone attacks also do much deflect any potential criticism that the Administration is weak in dealing with such matters.

Dr. ZhivBlago on May 24, 2013 at 2:59 PM

MSNBC is nothing but a left wing propaganda machine serving their master, Obama.

rplat on May 24, 2013 at 3:07 PM

Nobel Peace Prize that he totally earned a mere nine months into his presidency? Yeah, that one.

I believe that he was officially nominated 10 days after he was sworn in. Wow! The WON really worked long hours that week and a half to earn that POS medal. During those ten days he ordered NO DRONE STRIKES to keep his peaceful record clean.

fred5678 on May 24, 2013 at 3:22 PM

Obama: Don’t worry about that Ben Ghazi guy. I killed Bin Laden, and Bush didn’t!

And Obummer still wants to close Gitmo? Good luck with that–not even Upchuck Schumer was willing to hold trials in New York!

Steve Z on May 24, 2013 at 3:24 PM

They need the “war on terror” in order to further erode our Constitutional freedoms and to deflect criticism from the administration’s and Federal government’s ongoing corruption.

They just changed the definition of terrorist. They used to be jihadis from the Middle East–now they’re Minutemen in Arizona and Tea Partiers in Ohio.

Steve Z on May 24, 2013 at 3:29 PM

…bromides about what we’re told are President Foreign Policy’s miraculous yet still oddly unmaterialized abilities to move us drastically closer to world peace.

Erika, sometimes your writing shows signs of rivaling even the Master of Snark himself, Allahpundit. Good work!

KS Rex on May 24, 2013 at 3:45 PM

I love how crazy Al invoked the Nobel Peace Prize in praise of a speech that spoke about dropping bombs on people’s head. Maybe it was the “fewer” bombs than before that raised this to historic levels.

Do they even know or care that they are morons.

marnes on May 24, 2013 at 3:46 PM

His speech made less sense than Bluto’s Animal House Speech and was far less entertaining. Nothing less than base rallying time. Never thought I would say this, but Code Pink was the best part.

DDay on May 24, 2013 at 4:01 PM

Sperling posted this at the Examiner on May 23 about this “historic speech of Obysmal’s:

During his foreign policy speech Thursday afternoon, President Obama warned that domestic terrorism would increase in the modern age of the Internet.

“[T]his threat is not new,” Obama said. “But technology and the Internet increase its frequency and lethality.”

Obama warned Americans that materials on the Internet could influence people to commit terrorist acts.

“Today, a person can consume hateful propaganda, commit themselves to a violent agenda and learn how to kill without leaving their home,” he said.

To combat domestic terrorism, Obama reminded Americans that it was important to reach out to Muslim communities.

“The best way to prevent violent extremism is to work with the Muslim American community — which has consistently rejected terrorism — to identify signs of radicalization and partner with law enforcement when an individual is drifting towards violence,” he said. “And these partnerships can only work when we recognize that Muslims are a fundamental part of the American family.”

You see, we are just not working hard enough to “work with the Muslim American community” who are a “fundamental part of the American family.” Watch out, too, because Obysmal is again trying to limit the impact of the Internet.

onlineanalyst on May 24, 2013 at 4:22 PM

That Chris Hayes is a bit of a twink, isn’t he?

onlineanalyst on May 24, 2013 at 4:25 PM

Obama apparently gave two speeches yesterday and I watched the other one.

myiq2xu on May 24, 2013 at 5:03 PM

Didn’t take you that long to inject the man’s race into this didn’t it? And you wonder why blacks will never accept you tea billies hate the man simply because he’s a black man occupying the “people’s” house.

HotAirLib on May 24, 2013 at 1:00 PM

Nah. I’d detest the little pissant s.o.b. if he was white…or Asian…or any one of the myriad of made-up racial divisions.

Solaratov on May 24, 2013 at 11:00 PM

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