A pair of Democrat House candidates who lost in the 2010 midterm elections have announced they’ll try again in 2012.

First, in New Hampshire:

Five months after being narrowly defeated by Republican Charlie Bass, Democrat Ann McLane Kuster announced yesterday that she is taking a second run at the U.S. House in November 2012.
In a statement posted on her campaign website, Kuster said after observing “what is happening – in Washington, in Concord, and across the country – it is clear to me that this is no time to sit on the sidelines.”
“People were asking if I was going to run again, and I wanted to make sure that people are aware that I’ll work very, very hard for the seat,” Kuster said in an interview yesterday. “A grassroots campaign takes a lot of time to organize, and that’s what we expect to do again this time.”
Kuster, 54, of Concord, lost to Bass, a former six-term congressman from the 2nd District, by 3,550 votes in November.

Kuster may have problems with the top of the ticket if a recent ARG poll is accurate; the poll put President Obama’s job approval at a mere 34 percent and his disapproval at a stunning 57 percent. Last month’s University of New Hampshire poll was better, but not by much: “46 percent of New Hampshire adults say they approve of the job Obama is doing as president, 49 percent disapprove, and 4 percent are neutral.”

The UNH poll also found “41 percent of [2nd Congressional District] adults have a favorable opinion of Bass, 28 percent have an unfavorable opinion of him, and 32 percent are neutral or don’t know enough about him to say.”

Then, in Arizona:

Former Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, a freshman Democrat ousted in last year’s Republican tidal wave, is angling for a rematch against Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. She told AZ/DC Tuesday that she has made the decision to run for her seat again in 2012.

Arizona is gaining another congressional seat, so the district lines will be redrawn. Gosar won by 6 percentage points, or roughly 13,000 votes in 2010.