Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire, said it will be difficult for Ayotte to win if Clinton carries the state by eight points or more.

“Eight to ten points, a loss like that would be roughly what McCain’s loss to Obama was in 2008, which spelled the end for John Sununu. That’s an awful lot to ask Ayotte to make up,” he said…

In Pennsylvania, another Senate battleground, a Franklin & Marshall poll published Thursday shows Clinton leading Trump by 11 points among likely voters, 49 percent to 38, and by 13 points among registered voters, 48 percent to 35.

That’s bad news for Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, another Republican incumbent facing a tough re-election.

“In 1984, one out of every two voters cast a vote for the president of one party and a member of Congress from the other. In 2012, that number dropped to 20 percent, one in five. So we’re talking about the proverbial coat-tail effect,” said Terry Madonna, director of the Franklin & Marshall poll.