Ayotte vs. Trump: By the numbers

By Paul Briand

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, in his criticism of U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-NH, the other day, said, “You have a Kelly Ayotte who doesn’t want to talk about Trump, but I’m beating her in the polls by a lot.”

Trump being Trump, he wasn’t prepared with any detail to support the statement.

But a check of recent statewide polling by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center shows that -- whatever math Trump is using -- it doesn’t add up. Ayotte, according to polling, has a much higher favorability in New Hampshire than Trump.

Ayotte, who is running for a second term in the U.S. Senate against N.H. Gov. Maggie Hassan, has a net favorability rating of plus 2 percent.

Trump, who won the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary back in February against a slew of GOP contenders, has a net favorability rating of minus 29 percent.

Ayotte has largely kept herself at arm’s length from Trump. While she said she intends to vote for her party’s nominee for president, she hasn’t endorsed Trump.

She was recently critical of Trump for his comments about Khizr and Ghazala Khan, Gold Star parents whose son Humayun, a U.S. Army captain, was killed in 2004 by a suicide bomber in Iraq.

The Khans were critical of Trump during an appearance last week at the Democratic National Convention, Khizr Khan saying Trump knew nothing of sacrifice. Trump subsequently engaged in Twitter and broadcast criticisms of the Khans.

This provoked Ayotte, who husband is a military veteran, to say: "The Khan family deserves nothing less than our deepest support, respect and gratitude, and they have every right to express themselves in any way they choose. I am appalled that Donald Trump would disparage them and that he had the gall to compare his own sacrifices to those of a Gold Star family,"

That brought a rebuke of Ayotte from Trump, who said in an interview: “New Hampshire is one of my favorite places. You have a Kelly Ayotte who doesn’t want to talk about Trump, but I’m beating her in the polls by a lot. You tell me. Are these people that should be representing us, okay? You tell me.”

He added: “I don’t know Kelly Ayotte. I know she’s given me no support — zero support — and yet I’m leading her in the polls. I’m doing very well in New Hampshire. We need loyal people in this country. We need fighters in this country. We don’t need weak people. We have enough of them. We need fighters in this country. But Kelly Ayotte has given me zero support, and I’m doing great in New Hampshire.”

Ayotte later Tweeted: “I call it like I see it and I'm always going to stand up for our military families and what's best for the people of New Hampshire.”

The UNH survey center polls show that neither Trump nor his Democratic opponent -- former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- is doing very well in New Hampshire.

A WMUR Granite State Poll released July 21 shows Trump with a favorability rating among New Hampshire voters of 32 percent. His unfavorability rating is 61 percent. That translates into the net favorability rating of minus 29 percent.

Clinton’s favorability rating in that same poll was 36 percent, while her unfavorability rating was 58 percent, leaving a net favorability rating of minus 22 percent.

Contrast that with a WMUR Granite State poll released July 20 in the Ayotte-Hassan race for the Senate.

Ayotte has a favorable rating of 42 percent among likely voters. She has a negative rating of 40 percent. That’s a net favorability rating of plus 2 percent.

Hassan, meanwhile, has a favorability rating of 48 percent and an unfavorable rating of 35 percent, leaving her with a net rating of plus 13 percent.

Again, Trump isn’t saying where he’s getting his numbers, but the survey center’s results show Granite Staters with a far more favorable view of Ayotte over Trump.