Republicans Seek Nomination to Oppose Shaheen

Republican Scott Brown, on his third campaign - and second state - in five years, is hoping for a decisive primary win to launch him back toward the U.S. Senate.

Brown faces nine primary opponents on Tuesday, though only two mounted serious campaigns. Brown was the front-runner from the start and tailored his message toward a November showdown with incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. Republicans are trying to gain the six seats required to win a majority in the Senate during the last two years of President Barack Obama's term.

Brown, one of the original tea party favorites, shocked the nation in 2010 by winning the special election to replace the late Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy. Knocking off a Democrat to take the seat held for nearly five decades by one of the lions of the party vaulted Brown to the top of the GOP's list of rising stars, but then he was soundly defeated by consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren in 2012.

Late last year, he moved to New Hampshire, where he had a vacation home and had lived as a toddler, seeking an alternate route to Washington.

On Tuesday, Brown went for a run, went door to door talking to voters and voted in Rye with his wife. He planned to continue knocking on doors and calling voters until polls closed, urging them to take nothing for granted and reminding them of what's at stake.

"This is one of the most important elections in the country - it could determine the fate of the Senate," he said. "I'm pointing out to them that I have the tools, resources and the team to actually take on and beat Senator Shaheen."

If he's successful, Brown would become only the third U.S. senator to serve multiple states. The most recent was James Shields, who represented Illinois and Minnesota before being elected from Missouri in 1879. Before that, Waitman Willey served Virginia and then West Virginia once it became a state during the Civil War.

Brown's two main challengers, meanwhile, are hoping for comebacks of their own. Former U.S. Sen. Bob Smith held the seat for two terms but moved to Florida soon after losing the 2002 primary. Former state Sen. Jim Rubens has been out of office even longer: He served two terms in the state Legislature in the 1990s. Lagging far behind Brown in money, media attention and polls, they cast him as a liberal flip-flopper, arguing he's shown more consistency voting with Democrats than he has sticking to his convictions.

Teresa Hooper, 88, of Concord, said she voted for Smith because he is an adamant opponent of gun control while Brown backed extending a ban on assault weapons in Massachusetts and has declined to take a position during this campaign.

"I would've voted for him in a minute - even though a lot people don't like him because he's really from Massachusetts - if it wasn't for this gun issue," she said.

But Charles Kupperman, 63, of Canterbury, said Smith's time has passed. He voted for Brown after meeting him on the campaign trail and having a detailed discussion about national security.

"He tells it like it is. He votes the way he thinks the issue should be handled. He's independent when it comes to a variety of issues," Kupperman said. "He has a set of principles that guide him in his political career. He's won, he's lost, and he knows the difference."

Brown answered his rivals by calling himself an independent problem-solver willing to work across the political aisle and by reminding voters that, unlike Smith and Rubens, he never left the Republican Party. But for the most part, he focused on Shaheen, attempting to tie her to the increasingly unpopular Obama, particularly in her support for Obama's health care overhaul law.