Anne Kuster ran for Congress twice-- both times as a grassroots progressive and both times with super-prioritized support from progressive organizations both in New Hampshire and nationally, despite having worked as a Big Pharma lobbyist. In 2010, she lost her first race, 48-47% against conservative incumbent Charlie Bass. Two years later, in the 2012 rematch, and with President Obama's coattails in play, Kuster beat Bass 50-46%. She joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus and there were no obvious reasons to think she wouldn't be the progressive champion she painted herself to be in her two campaigns.





But then a pattern started emerging from her voting record, both on the Agriculture Committee, where she voted with the Republicans to deregulate banksterism in regard to derivatives, and overall, where she tended to follow the advice of the DCCC to go the Republican-lite route on all economic and financial questions. A few months after joining the Progressive Caucus, she quit and joined both the conservative and corrupt New Dems-- a perfect place for former and future lobbyists-- and Patrick Murphy's United Solutions Caucus





New Hampshire voters are starting to recognize the mistake they-- and all of us on the progressive side-- made. A new poll from WMUR shows growing dissatisfaction with the duplicitous Kuster. Following Steve Israel's advice to rebrand herself as a New Dem is not paying off among Democrats in a blue district. NH-02, essentially the western part of the state, has a PVI of D+3, prohibitive territory for the modern Republican Party. Obama won there in 2008 (56%) and last year (54%). His 190,413 votes helped pull Kuster over the winning line (169,275 votes). But even without him on the ballot, Kuster, who has a no-name Tea Party opponent, isn't likely to lose next year. Unless Democrats stay away from the polls to protest her GOP-lite approach to governance.





not back the government shutdown. Now, back to that Granite State Poll. The contrast with Carol Shea-Porter is unavoidable. Shea-Porter, a far more independent-minded congresswoman, represents the much redder part of New Hampshire (PVI is R+1 and Obama only scraped by with 50% of the vote last year). But Carol, unlike Kuster, has stayed true to everything she campaigned on-- despite having to fight a likely rematch with former Rep. Frank Guinta. It's why Blue America picked Carol as one of our two-- and only two so far-- progressive incumbents in need of help this year. It's worth mentioning that the Republicans are probably going to have a bitter primary battle in NH-01. Guinta is a dyed-in-the-wool, tri-corner-hat teabagger and he publicly backed the government shutdown. He's also a vicious homophobe and anti-Choice fanatic. His opponent, University of New Hampshire business school dean Dan Innis, is married to a man, says abortion is between a woman and her doctor and didback the government shutdown. Now, back to that Granite State Poll.

The WMUR Granite State Poll shows that in the 1st Congressional District, 42 percent of respondents said they have a favorable opinion of U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H., compared to 28 percent with an unfavorable opinion.



The survey of 330 randomly selected New Hampshire adults was conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center by landline and cellphone from Oct.7-16 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.4 percentage points.



In the 2nd Congressional District, the picture isn't as good for U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H. The poll shows that 23 percent have a favorable opinion of her, while 28 percent do not.



...Two Republican challengers have declared their intent to run against Shea-Porter: former U.S. Rep. Frank Guinta and former UNH Business School Dean Dan Innis. The poll shows Guinta is the better known candidate but also the least liked.



The poll shows 24 percent have a favorable opinion of Guinta, compared to 34 percent with an unfavorable opinion.



Innis is viewed favorably by 7 percent and unfavorably by 2 percent. The rest don't know enough about him to say.



In the 2nd District, former state Sen. Gary Lambert is the only Republican to have declared a challenge to Kuster. The poll shows that he's not well known, with 5 percent of adults having a favorable opinion of him and 4 percent with an unfavorable opinion.



Despite Lambert being a virtual unknown, the poll shows him in a tie with Kuster, with both having 33 percent support.



The survey shows that Democratic support could be a problem for Kuster, with 62 percent of likely Democratic voters saying they would support her if the election were held today.

Maybe Kuster should go ask Steve Israel to explain that to her and explain why he led her down the garden path. Meanwhile, this weekend another Granite State Poll was released showing Carol Shea-Porter's lead growing against either of the Republicans while confirming that Kuster has damaged herself with the base. The results are an obvious repudiation of Steve Israel's insistence that freshmen abandon core progressive values in order to appear more conservative.