Former Senator Kelly Ayotte is now one step closer to her long-shot Republican presidential bid Governor Chris Sununu In the swing state of New Hampshire.
Ayotte, a former state attorney general, lost her Senate run in 2016 after she broke up with her husband. former president trump defeated former New Hampshire Senate President Chuck Morse in Tuesday’s Republican gubernatorial primary, following the release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” video.
Governor Sununu, a nationally popular figure, is not seeking re-election this year after winning four consecutive two-year terms as governor of the Granite State.
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Chris Sununu, Republican Governor of New Hampshire, is interviewed by Fox News Digital on July 11, 2024 in Newfields, NH (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
Ayotte will face Joyce Craig, who served three two-year terms as mayor of Manchester, New Hampshire’s largest city, in the November election eight weeks later. Craig won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination by defeating the only Democrat left, Cinde Warmington. of New Hampshire The Executive Council, which is an elected five-member panel, approves state agency heads, judges, and major state contracts.
What did Ayotte tell Fox News during her New Hampshire campaign trip?
The battle to replace Sununu in New Hampshire, a perennial general election swing state, is being considered by political pundits as the only competitive gubernatorial election in the nation this year.
Ayotte endorsed Trump this year while running for her party’s nomination, as he campaigns to get his old job back in the White House.
Former Senator Kelly Ayotte, a frontrunner for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in New Hampshire, speaks to voters at the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival on September 7, 2024. (Kelly Ayotte Campaign)
But Morse touted his conservative credentials and his support for Trump. But the former president has remained neutral in the race.
Ayotte, who received Sununu’s endorsement this summer, told Fox News earlier this year that “the path that Governor Sununu has put us on is one of prosperity, of greater freedom. … I want us to continue on that path. I appreciate his leadership and the work he’s done, and I want to continue his success for this state.”
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Morse, facing a tough challenge against the higher-polling and better-funded Ayotte, repeatedly fielded questions about her conservative record as a senator and her support for Trump.
Former New Hampshire state Senate President Chuck Morse, who is running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, shakes hands with voters at the Milford, NH Labor Day Parade on September 2, 2024 (Chuck Morse gubernatorial campaign)
“I think there’s a huge difference between me and Kelly Ayotte,” Morse said this summer. “I started out as a conservative, and ended up as a conservative as Senate president, and I promise you, I will be a conservative governor. … Kelly did not do that when she went to Washington.”
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Ayotte hit back at Morse’s attacks, pointing to Morse’s failed bid for the GOP Senate nomination in 2022, and said “I’ve known Chuck for a long time and this is a sad way to end his political career.”
Like the Republican gubernatorial primary, the Democrats’ nomination battle devolved into a war of words.
In a state hit hard by the opioid crisis, Craig recently released an ad criticizing Warmington’s past work as a lobbyist for Purdue Pharma, a drugmaker known for producing the controversial painkiller OxyContin.
Warmington responded with an ad of his own, accusing Craig of launching the attack to distract from his record in leading New Hampshire’s largest city out of crime and homelessness crises.
There was something else making headlines in New Hampshire, too: an ugly primary battle in the race to replace the retiring six-time Democratic nominee. Representative Annie Kuster In the 2nd Congressional District, which covers the western half and northern region of the state.
Kuster was backing former staffer and former Executive Councilman Collin Van Ostern, who lost the 2016 gubernatorial election to Sununu by a slim margin.
Maggie Goodlander (left) and Colin Van Ostern (right), Democratic candidates in New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District, participate in a primary debate on June 7, 2024 in Manchester, New Hampshire. (NH Today Show)
Van Ostern faces Maggie Goodlander, a former top lawyer in President Biden’s administration who served as deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department and is the wife of Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
The Associated Press had projected that Maggie Goodlander would win the Democratic congressional nomination.
The primary was marred by a poor showing with aggressive advertising targeting Goodlander for past donations to “pro-life” Republicans. Accusations of carpetbagger were also leveled at Goodlander, who was born in the district but had not lived there in decades and, through her husband, was also connected to top national Democrats, including former President Clinton and former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Four-term governor John Lynch initially supported Van Ostern but later endorsed Goodlander, saying, “I think his campaign is one of the worst campaigns I’ve seen in my fifty years of attending elections in New Hampshire.”
Goodlander previously faced criticism for taking a negative stance when a super PAC took aim at Van Ostern, who was backed not only by Kuster but several prominent state Democrats, in an ad.
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In the Republican congressional primary field, the AP projected that Lily Tang Williams, who was making her second straight bid for the congressional nomination, would beat Vikram Mansharamani, who ran unsuccessfully for the 2022 GOP Senate nomination.
In the state’s 1st Congressional District, which covers the eastern part of the state, three-term Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas was easily renominated. The AP projects that Russell Prescott will win the GOP nomination, beating a crowded field of Republican rivals.
After six months of competition, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Delaware held the final state primaries of the 2024 election cycle.
