Do Tuesday's primary results signal the end of the line for Bush rubber-stamper Sen. John Sununu?

We don't usually bother you with breaking news from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, but yesterday on the DSCC blog Matthew Miller took an interesting look at some of the New Hampshire primary numbers, more or less the way they might be viewed by reelection campaign strategists for one of the Senate's most undistinguished Bush rubber-stampers, New Hampshire's own John Sununu. He concluded: "New Hampshire Results Show Big Trouble for John Sununu."

It has been generally accepted that Sununu is in deep trouble in his reelection bid. The way Miller looks at Tuesday's numbers suggests that it's pretty much all over but the vote-counting, that it's just a matter of time before former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen sweeps out another of New England's dwindling band of GOP officeholders:

The turnout results were dramatic--50,000 more Granite Staters voted in the Democratic primary than the Republican primary, with nearly 280,000 voting in the Democratic race and only 229,000 turning out for Republicans. This was the first time since the establishment of the modern New Hampshire primary system that more people voted in the Democratic primary than the Republican primary when both were contested. Republicans actually turned out 10,000 fewer voters for their primary than in 2000, the last time there was a contested Republican presidential primary in their state. On the Democratic side, there were 125,000 more voters than in the 2000 primary, and 61,000 more voters than the 2004 primary, which was then a Democratic record, largely due to the fact that there was no Republican contest that year.

New Hampshire independents also showed that they are trending Democratic. According to exit polls, in the Democratic primary, 42% of voters were independents, up 1% from 2000, while in the Republican primary, only 34% of voters were registered independents – a 7% drop from 2000.

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