The New Hampshire Senate race was one of the few (relative) disappointments in a night of surprisingly good news for conservatives. So why didn’t Scott Brown catch the wave? One thing that jumps out from the exit polls was that a majority of voters thought Brown was too new to their state.
Fifty-three percent answered “no” to the question, “Has Brown lived in N.H. long enough?” Of those who felt that Brown’s migration to the Granite State was too recent, 89 percent voted for Jeanne Shaheen. Of the 45 percent who thought Brown had been there long enough, 93 percent voted for him.
Of course, it could be that voters who had made up their mind to support Brown would simply say that they didn’t mind his state-hopping from Massachusetts, and those who favored Shaheen would be inclined to criticize him for it. But the major theme of Shaheen’s campaign, that Brown was an opportunistic carpetbagger who cared more about his ambition than New Hampshire, seems to have resonated.