Polls: Brown, Shaheen in Dead Heat in NH Senate Race

Seemingly overnight, the New Hampshire Senate race has turned into a dead heat.

Republican Scott Brown's come-from-behind performance, which has him tied 48-48 percent among likely voters in a new CNN/Opinion Research Center (ORC) poll with incumbent Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, puts the New Hampshire Senate seat up for grabs.

The poll's finding could have heavy implications for Republican efforts to take over the Senate in the November midterm elections.

Real Clear Politics now also calls the race a "toss-up" and comments, "Right now it looks like a wave election would be needed to drag Shaheen under, but that might be where we're headed."

Brown, a former senator from Massachusetts, has fought off charges of being a "carpetbagger" from Shaheen, a Democrat. He was trailing Shaheen in July by 12 points in a WMUR Manchester poll, but since has made up the difference, and the Brown/Shaheen race is now considered neck-and-neck.

Pundits are citing President Barack Obama's miserable approval rating of 35 percent for much of Brown's sudden surge, with WMUR saying Obama's approval rating "is a considerable drag on Shaheen, who still has an approval rating above 50 percent."

In the CNN/ORC poll, Shaheen still had a 51-44 percent lead over Brown among registered voters.

But a National Research poll found results similar to those of the CNN/ORC poll among those likely to vote: a 45-45 percent tie.

Adam Geller of National Research, in a memo to Brian Baker of the Ending Spending Action Fund, confirmed the results and noted, "Energy also seems to be on the Republican side. All this leads to the very real possibility that she [Shaheen] could be defeated in November," Politico reported.

"Among the 70 percent who recall seeing or hearing an advertisement about Sen. Shaheen, Scott Brown leads 49 percent to 41 percent," Geller wrote.

Republican presidential front-runner Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has stumped for Brown, and told Breitbart News, "I think what Scott Brown is probably most well known for is his opposition to Obamacare. I think at one point in time he was going to be the 41st vote to stop Obamacare and he voted against Obamacare. Now I'd like to see him become the 51st vote against Obamacare, and I hope it'll help us get rid of Obamacare."

Brown spokeswoman Elizabeth Guyton told the Boston Globe, "People want an independent senator who votes for New Hampshire first. By voting with President Obama 99 percent of the time, Jeanne Shaheen has given us fewer jobs, higher taxes and debt, a healthcare law that doesn't work and an unstable world."

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