With two and a half weeks until Election Day, it appears to remain a margin-of-error race between former Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte and former Democratic Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig in the contest to succeed GOP Gov. Chris Sununu in the corner office.

Ayotte stands at 42% and Craig at 41% among 600 likely Granite State voters questioned in a UMass Lowell/YouGov survey conducted online Oct. 2-10.

The razor-thin one-point edge held by Ayotte, who served as state attorney general before winning election to the U.S. Senate in 2010, is well within the survey’s sampling error of plus or minus 4.83 percentage points.

The poll is the latest public opinion survey to point to a close contest between Ayotte and Craig in a high-profile, expensive and very competitive gubernatorial race that Democrats view as their best chance to flip a governor’s office in the 2024 election cycle. Sununu won four straight two-year terms steering New Hampshire before announcing last year that he wouldn’t seek an unprecedented fifth term.

In the race for New Hampshire’s four electoral votes, the poll indicates Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, at 50% support, with GOP standard-bearer former President Donald Trump at 41%. The survey is the most recent to point to Harris holding a comfortable margin over Trump in New Hampshire.

Biden returning to NH

The winner of the White House election will succeed President Joe Biden, who returns to New Hampshire this upcoming week.

The White House announced that Biden will stop in the Granite State on Tuesday for an official event highlighting the administration’s efforts to lower prescription drug costs. At the time this story was posted, the Biden administration had not revealed a location for the event or any further details.

Biden angered Democrats in New Hampshire when the Democratic National Committee, following the president’s lead, in early 2023 bumped the state from its traditional role as the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state.

New Hampshire, adhering to a state law that mandates its presidential primary goes first, did just that, which meant the state’s Jan. 23 nominating contest early this year was unsanctioned on the Democratic side.

Biden kept his name off the ballot and steered clear of the state, but thanks to a well-organized write-in effort by New Hampshire’s Democratic establishment leaders, the president easily won the primary over his long-shot challengers.

The president returned to the state with stops in Manchester and Goffstown in March, and in Merrimack and Nashua in May, for policy and political events, when he was still running for re-election. Biden, in a blockbuster announcement, ended his 2024 presidential bid in July and backed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him atop the Democrats’ national ticket.

The president has made stops in key battleground and swing states the past couple of months, in both political and official capacities, to campaign on behalf of Harris and to highlight the Biden-Harris administration’s policy accomplishments.

Gwen Walz back on NH campaign trail

Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz, the wife of Harris’s running mate Gov. Tim Walz, also returns to New Hampshire next week.

The Harris campaign says Walz is scheduled to make stops throughout northern New Hampshire and Concord, where she’ll highlight the issues of reproductive freedom, strengthening democracy and boosting the economy.

Walz last visited New Hampshire in September, as she joined Harris campaign volunteers at a phone bank in Manchester.

Republicans for Harris

Former GOP Gov. Bill Weld of Massachusetts returned to New Hampshire on Thursday, to team up with local Republicans who are backing Harris over Trump in the presidential election.

He joined New Hampshire Republicans for Harris-Walz co-chairs James Steiner – a former GOP candidate for Congress and former U.S. Army Green Beret, and Claira Monier, a former Reagan administration official – as well as former New Hampshire Attorney General Gregory Smith, at an event in Concord.

It’s part of the Harris campaign’s nationwide effort to court Republicans disgruntled with Trump, who holds vast sway over most but not all of the GOP.

Weld launched an unsuccessful longshot Republican primary challenge against then-President Trump in the 2020 presidential primaries.

Beshear in New Hampshire

Two-term Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear parachuted into New Hampshire this week, to give the keynote address at the state Democratic Party’s annual Eleanor Roosevelt Dinner, which is a major fundraising gala.

Beshear, who many pundits consider a potential Democratic presidential contender down the road, is considered a rising star in the party as he won election and re-election as governor in a solidly red state. He joked as he introduced himself to the Granite State crowd that “I’m the guy that…beat Mitch McConnell’s handpicked guy…Trump’s handpicked guy.”