Seven months into his first term, Congressman Frank Guinta comes home to mixed reviews.

Freshman Rep. Frank Guinta found himself both beseiged and beloved on Wednesday, Aug. 17. While touring Beckwood Services in Plaistow that morning, he was praised for his understanding of the state’s manufacturing needs and applauded for his promises to help people achieve secure employment. At a town hall-style forum in Greenland hours later, he was angrily reproached about his voting record on health care and his refusal to raise taxes on the wealthy.

Guinta, now seven months into his tenure as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, is home for the summer Congressional recess. He’s been traveling around the state during the break, making himself accessible to constituents while getting an early jump on his reelection campaign. During the three-day span from Aug. 16 to 18, his travels included stops in Londonderry, Plaistow, Greenland, Manchester, Portsmouth and Somersworth.

But his audiences haven’t always been welcoming. Like other members of Congress, Guinta’s approval ratings have plummeted in recent months, and several Democrats have already stepped forward to challenge him in 2012.

The former Manchester mayor arrived at Beckwood Services around 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 17. The contract manufacturing company makes electro-mechanical parts for machine tools, including components for Raytheon’s Patriot Missile Fire Control System. Now in its 20th year, the business now has two locations in Plaistow and employs 52 people, including about a dozen added this year.

Guinta chatted with president Peter Alcock and chief operating officer Michael Woodbury as they strolled the 20,000-square-foot facility. Alcock believes Guinta is a significant improvement over former Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, a Democrat.

“We think he gets it,” Alcock said. “His predecessor sure was someplace—lord knows where. She couldn’t care less about manufacturing in New Hampshire.”

Guinta delivered a short speech to the employees of Beckwood, praising them for their patriotic services. When he was done, employee Rick Jackson, of New Durham, asked Guinta what he could do for people living paycheck to paycheck. The congressman started by telling Jackson what he already knew.

“We are at a point in our nation where I think there are too many people who are unemployed—about 15 million people who are unemployed. But then we have a whole other segment who are either underemployed or who are literally living paycheck to paycheck. In the greatest nation in the world, that’s unacceptable.”

His response rambled on for nearly six minutes, during which he spoke of the government’s responsibility to provide citizens with “predictability,” rein in spending, and balance the federal budget.

Asked if he was satisfied with the congressman’s response, Jackson shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, it’s a generic answer, but there are big problems,” he said.

The crowd in Greenland was less receptive. Protesters outside the town offices held signs reading “Hands off Medicare and Social Security.” Guests overflowed the selectmen’s meeting room and spilled into an adjacent hallway. The forum lasted about an hour and a half, during which boisterous attendees shouted accusations and interrupted one another. The heated atmosphere echoed Carol Shea-Porter’s much publicized town hall meetings in the summer of 2009, but with the party roles reversed.

As Guinta informed the crowd in Greenland, he was the first person in his family to go to college. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Assumption College in Worcester, Mass., and came to New Hampshire to complete his master’s in intellectual property at Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord. He then settled in Manchester, the Granite State’s largest city, where he still lives with his wife Morgan, their 8-year-old daughter Colby and their 6-year-old son Jack. Guinta served two terms as a city alderman and two more as a state representative before being elected mayor in 2005.

Guinta won his seat in Congress amid a flood of Republican victories across the state and nation in November 2010, defeating two-term incumbent Carol Shea-Porter. The election marked a dramatic political shift in New Hampshire, as Republicans swept the state’s three Congressional races and gained huge majorities in the state House and Senate.

But, after just six months in office, Guinta and other Congressional delegates were facing increasingly negative approval ratings. A Granite State Poll released by the UNH Survey Center in July placed Guinta’s net favorability rating at -6 percent, down from +5 percent in April. Only 24 percent of those polled said they had a favorable opinion of Guinta, while 30 percent had an unfavorable opinion, 12 percent were neutral, and 34 percent didn’t know enough about him to say. Even among Republicans, Guinta’s net favorability rating was only 28 percent.

Republican U.S. Rep. Charlie Bass, who represents New Hampshire’s Second Congressional District, fared even worse, with a net favorability rating of -11 percent.

Andrew Smith, director of the UNH Survey Center, said it’s difficult to pinpoint any specific action that soured voters to Guinta and Bass. Their poor numbers reflect “the general attitude toward Congress,” he said, adding that Congressional favorability ratings are at historic lows across the country.

Part of the reason is the lengthy partisan dispute over raising the nation’s debt ceiling, which nearly resulted in an unprecedented default on government services until a compromise was reached in early August. Guinta voted in favor of the final debt bill, which cuts spending by more than $2 trillion over the next 10 years.

Many voters are skeptical of plans to make such drastic cuts without identifying new revenue sources. Republicans, including Guinta, have refused to consider eliminating Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy.

That refusal drew the ire of many forum attendees in Greenland. One woman pointed out that General Electric did not pay any federal taxes last year. This is true. In fact, GE has identified loopholes that allowed the massive company to rake in billions of dollars in profits without paying a single penny in federal taxes in 2009 or 2010.

Guinta said he will work to reform the tax code to eliminate such loopholes and make sure companies like GE pay their fair share. He said members of both parties were to blame for flaws in the current tax code.

“I do agree with trying to make the system fairer so the same rules apply to everybody, on the corporate side and on the individual side,” he said. “I am very hopeful and optimistic that that’s going to happen this fall.”

But he would not budge on his opposition to raising taxes on the rich. Diane Kelly, of Stratham, suggested returning the tax rates to pre-Bush levels. “Maybe the rates need to go back to where they used to be,” she said.

“OK, well, I respect your position and I hear what you’re saying,” Guinta replied. “I personally would prefer a different option, which is not trying to raise rates. I’d rather try to raise revenue in other ways.”

He provided scant details about what those “other ways” might entail, other than to emphasize the importance of growing the economy and noting that he’s held two job fairs toward that end this summer, in Derry and Rochester.

Guinta, who is already raising funds for his reelection campaign, often sounded more like a candidate than a congressman. He repeatedly cited his experience as mayor of Manchester and spoke mainly in broad platitudes. Some attendees got fed up with the rhetoric, including John Cochrane, who said he has been out of work for three and a half years and is in need of “desperate help.”

“I’m tired of the rhetoric,” Cochrane said. “Could you please give me an answer to this without straying? I really don’t want you to stray in your answer.”

After a burst of applause, Guinta responded by offering his personal assistance. “I’ll personally help you. I’ll give you my cell phone number, my home address, my work number. I’ll sit down with you personally,” he said, mentioning another job fair he’s hosting in November. “As a matter of fact, if you’d like, I’ll come to your home, I’ll pick you up and we’ll go (to the job fair) together.”

That may be good news for Cochrane, but it does little to quell the concerns of the roughly 39,000 other unemployed residents in New Hampshire, or the 13.9 million unemployed across the nation. Guinta won’t be driving all of them to job fairs.

The congressman also took flak for his legislative votes on health care. Like most Republicans, he opposed President Obama’s health care reform act and voted in favor of Congressman Paul Ryan’s controversial budget bill, which included major cuts to Medicare (it was later rejected by the Senate).

Joan Jacobs, a 67-year-old retiree living in Portsmouth, vehemently scolded Guinta about his voting record and accused him of hypocrisy. She asked him how he squares his votes in Congress with his claims of sympathy for area seniors.

“You don’t make any sense to me, Mr. Guinta,” she said.

One man even chastised Guinta for wasting money on glossy mailers and for failing to provide more advance notice of the forum in Greenland, which was not mentioned on his website until the day of the event.

Guinta maintained his composure throughout the barrage of accusations, telling guests that although they may not agree on everything, they can still have respectful discussions and work together. He repeatedly spoke of the need for bipartisan cooperation, at one point mentioning that he broke rank with his own party in March to vote in favor of a bill sponsored by Congressman Dennis Kucinich that would have brought U.S. troops home from Afghanistan (the measure failed overwhelmingly).

The anger in Greenland was reflective of a reenergized Democratic party that is determined to bounce back in 2012.

“Democrats, in the aftermath of the 2010 election, have stepped up their partisan opposition to Republicans who have gotten into office,” said Andrew Smith, of the UNH Survey Center.

Shea-Porter, of Rochester, is hoping for a rematch with Guinta in 2010. While she may be the highest profile contender to enter the race so far, she’ll have to fend off bids from several other Democrats in the primary, including Portsmouth’s Joanne Dowdell and Laconia’s Andrew Hosmer.

“(Shea-Porter’s) biggest challenge, I think, is going to be winning the Democratic nomination,” Smith said.

Guinta still has more than 16 months remaining in his current term. He’ll return to Washington on Sept. 7 and dive into the fall legislative sessions. Until then, he’ll continue to tour businesses and meet with constituents.

About 24 hours after leaving Plaistow, Guinta arrived at the Cross Roads House homeless shelter in Portsmouth. He toured the facility with executive director Chris Sterndale, board president David Van Patten, and development director Martha Stone, pausing along the way to discuss homeless issues.

Roughly 40 percent of the shelter’s funding (about $400,000) comes through the government, Sterndale said, and that number has been dropping.

“That’s been flat or fading for the last five or six years, so it makes it tougher for us,” he said. “We have to depend more on our private donors than we ever have before.”

But the most significant way the government can help reduce homelessness, Sterndale said, is to increase access to affordable housing.

“In the long-term, we need a substantial investment in housing that’s affordable to people. There’s a role for the federal government in that,” he said. “That’s the one thing that structurally needs to get fixed before we can go out of business.”

Sterndale asked Guinta to help expedite implementation of the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act, the details of which are still being developed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“Let me look into that for you and then we’ll give you a buzz,” Guinta told him. “We’ll see if we can try to push that along.”

With that, the congressman was out the door and on his way to the next appointment.