New Hampshire's Second Congressional race between Republican Representative Charlie Bass and Democrat Paul Hodes is drawing intense interest from Washington.
In just the past 24 hours, the two national parties have poured about $700,000 dollars into the race.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Dan Gorenstein reports.
Thursday the National Republican Congressional Committee bought $365 thousand dollars worth of advertising time from ABC-affiliate WMUR in Manchester.
That is considered a heavy saturation buy likely to run during prime-time, news and possibly the Patriots Monday night football game.
Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Alex Burgos says they NRCC is spending enough money so:
:58 every NH 2 voter is going to see this ad in the coming weeks leading up to Election Day.
Burgos played the ad.
:02 Liberal Paul Hodes wants to raise taxes. Paul Hodes wont support making the taxes permanent. And that would bring back the marriage penalty....
The spot uses the word tax or taxes seven different times over the course of the 30 second ad.
An official with the NRCC says it decided to run the commercial based on internal polling and the race is becoming more competitive.
The official said the ad buy is an effort to head off any momentum that may exist.
4:58 we feel the momentum is with Charlie Bass.
Bass spokesperson Scott Tranchemontagne.
...With John McCain in the state for him...it's hard to gauge, all we can do is go out and run our campaing, talk about our message, meet as many voters as we can, stay positive, and work hard, that's what Charlie Bass has always been about, and that's certainly what he is about right now.
When Paul Hodes heard the news that the Republicans would be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars campaigning against him, he couldn't help but smile.
:12 it shows clearly that our campaign is effective. That Charlie Bass is scared of where he is. He knows we are on track to win this race. Things are really moving in the last couple of days.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has done its best to match their Republican counterparts by making a some $300,000 dollar ad buy on WMUR.
At time of publication of this story the content of the ad campaign was not known.
UNH Pollster Andy Smith says he doesn't want to read too much into the infusion of cash into the race yet.
He says, without seeing the internal polling data from either party, it's impossible to truly handicap which candidate is enjoying momentum right now.
But he says this turn of events hardly means the end for six term incumbent Charlie Bass.
The fact that R. are putting this much money doesn't mena Bass is in real trouble, but it's not a good sign. Typically incumbents win, if an incumbent has to spend a lot of money at the end it means they are more vulnerable than an incumbent would normally be.
Smith noted that whenever a Congressional incumbent spends more than $800,000 on a race, it's not a good sign.
As of Congressman Bass's most recent filing, he has spent over 1 million dollars.
For NHPR News, I'm DG.
