The Saint Anselm College Survey Center went into the field on 17 and 18 August. Among Democrats in the first district it found Sullivan at 26 and Shaheen at 24, with Carleigh Beriont on 12. State Representative Heath Howard took 7 and Christian Urrutia 3. Sarah Chadzynski didn’t register a point.

Read the fine print before you get excited. The survey covered 1,411 likely voters statewide with an overall margin of error of 2.6 points. But the first district subsample is far smaller, and the Union Leader put the margin on this question at 5.2. A two-point gap inside a 5.2-point margin isn’t a lead in any meaningful sense. It’s a tie that happens to have Sullivan’s name on top.

Still, something did change. In July we wrote that Shaheen led this field with 22 percent and that half the district hadn’t decided. Shaheen has been the front-runner in every public poll since the race began. So the news isn’t that Sullivan is winning. It’s that Shaheen has stopped winning, with fourteen days left and ballots already being cast.

Sullivan has outraised everyone in this field all year. Through the second quarter she reported roughly $3.2 million raised and about $1.6 million left to spend. Shaheen reported around $2.2 million and $1.2 million on hand. Urrutia passed a million. Beriont brought in $121,000 in the quarter.

That gap has been visible on air for weeks. Both leading campaigns are running television, and a committee tied to Sullivan’s service has been filling mailboxes in the district. So the poll movement isn’t mysterious. Sullivan spent more, earlier, in a race where two thirds of the field never got heard from.

Because she is the one with money, she’s also the one drawing fire. Shaheen went up in mid-August with the primary’s first negative ad, saying Sullivan had taken $300,000 bundled from AIPAC donors, along with support from Jeff Bezos and an immigration enforcement contractor. Sullivan’s spokesman Emmett Avery said she has taken no AIPAC money and wouldn’t accept the group’s endorsement. AIPAC itself hasn’t endorsed in the race.

Campaign people read a front-runner’s first attack ad as a confession. You don’t spend money making the case against someone unless your own numbers say you need to.

Put it at full strength, because right now it’s the better-supported side. Anyone reading this piece as good news for Sullivan should get through the next four paragraphs first.

One poll is not a trend. Shaheen has led every public survey of this race for more than a year, and a single two-point flip inside a five-point margin is exactly the sort of noise that shows up once in a series and then disappears. The prediction markets, which have money behind them, still price Shaheen somewhere near 70 percent. A New Hampshire operative quoted last week said he had a hard time believing Shaheen loses this primary, and that’s the consensus view among people who watch the state professionally.

Then there’s the name. Jeanne Shaheen has been governor and senator, and she’s retiring this year with her daughter on the ballot. Name recognition inside a low-turnout September primary is worth more than almost anything a challenger can buy. Shaheen has also picked up union endorsements, including firefighters this month.

Sullivan’s own history cuts against her too, and it would be dishonest to skip it. She moved to New Hampshire in 2017 and announced a run for this same seat within three months, which local critics called carpetbagging at the time. She then finished second to Pappas in an eleven-way field. That’s a real showing and also a loss. Voters who declined to reward her in 2018 have no obvious reason to change their minds now.

Add the two results above and the pattern is unfriendly. In a Democratic primary, service loses to a local base, a family name, or an incumbent’s record. Three states have said so this month.

Two reasons, and neither is that veterans win primaries.

First, the undecided share. Add the published numbers and roughly a quarter of the field is still unallocated, which is a lot at this stage. Undecided voters in a nine-way race break late and they break toward whoever is still on television in the final week. Sullivan has the cash to be there. Shaheen has less.

Second, the war. The same Saint Anselm survey found 60 percent of New Hampshire respondents less likely to back a Republican because of the war in Iran, and Democrats now lead the generic ballot in the state by a wide margin. That finding is about November rather than about September, so it doesn’t help Sullivan next month. It does mean the first district general election is likely to be fought on national security ground, and it’s the reason a nominee who served in Iraq is worth more to the party in this seat than her primary polling suggests.

None of that makes her the favourite. It makes her the candidate whose case gets stronger the day after the primary, which is an awkward thing to be on the day of one.

Watch three things, in this order. None of them will show up on a topline.

Seacoast turnout decides the top line. Sullivan lives in New Castle and Shaheen in Portsmouth, so they’re fishing the same pond, and whichever of them wins their shared base by more probably wins the primary. Manchester is the swing city here, since no Manchester candidate ever entered the race and the largest bloc of votes in the district has no local favourite.

Then look at Beriont and Howard. Between them they hold 19 percent, and both have spent a year trying to be the progressive alternative. If either collapses in the final fortnight, where those votes land matters more than the two-point gap at the top. Shaheen has run to Sullivan’s left on donors and on Israel, which suggests her campaign expects that pool to be reachable.

Finally, note what neither candidate is arguing about. Sullivan is running on service and cost of living. Shaheen is running on health care and on who funds her opponent. Nobody in this primary is contesting the Iraq record, and nobody is contesting the Shaheen name either. Both sides have decided those are settled facts that voters will weigh however they weigh them, which is usually a sign that the campaign is really about turnout.