New polling out of the Granite State indicates that the 2008 New Hampshire Senate race could be bound to give Republicans even more of a headache than they previously expected. John DiStaso has the details for the New Hampshire Union Leader.

[T]he results of an American Research Group poll to be released today are no fun for Republican Sen. John Sununu, who's up for reelection in 2008.

ARG pollster Dick Bennett decided to do a head-to-head between Sununu and former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, whom Sununu defeated nearly five years ago. Bennett said it was "just for fun," but also said Sununu "seems concerned about his relationship with the Bush administration, and when he distanced himself from the President, I thought there might be something there."

Although Shaheen has not said if she will run for the Senate in 2008, Bennett wanted a comparison to 2002. "The answer is, he acts concerned and probably should be."

And his problems stem from Bush, who registered an all-time low approval rating in the Granite State, 17 percent.

Based on 551 random phone interviews of registered voters (169 Republicans, 152 Democrats and 230 undeclared), Shaheen received 44 percent, Sununu 34 percent, and undecided 22 percent. The survey was taken March 25 through 28 and has a margin of error of 4.2 percent.

The poll showed that 17 percent of Republicans favored Shaheen and 16 percent were undecided, while only 1 percent of Democrats favored Sununu with 7 percent undecided. Independents split, 32 percent each way, with 36 percent undecided.

In October 2002, ARG found Shaheen with 43 percent, Sununu with 51 percent and 6 percent undecided. [emphasis added]

I'm not sure if these numbers could possibly be worse for Sununu and the Republicans. I've had some concerns about a Shaheen candidacy -- not only because she has not expressed too much interest in running but also because she didn't run the strongest campaign in 2002 (even notwithstanding the Republican voter fraud in the race) -- but these numbers indicate that she would be a formidable candidate against Sununu.

The problem for the freshman Senator is that while ARG did not poll other Democrats, these numbers would tend to indicate that any fairly strong Democratic candidate might be able to do him in. George W. Bush at a 17 percent approval rating? Even if this is asked in a somewhat unbalanced manner (say, excellent/good v. fair/poor), these numbers still bode terribly for Republicans in New Hampshire. What's more, the fact that more than one in six Republicans would chose the Democratic candidate in a head-to-head matchup featuring Sununu is terrible news, particularly given that Sununu fails to even break the margin of error among Democratic voters in the state.

No doubt, we are far away from election day and things can (and I'd imagine will) change. That said, as I opined just yesterday, Sununu is looking more and more like this cycle's Rick Santorum -- a Senator simply too conservative for his constituents -- and this polling does little to dispel the notion that Sununu is going to have the darndest time trying to win a second term next fall.