Retired Gen. Don Bolduc (R), who accused the state governor of being a “Chinese Communist sympathizer” and falsely claimed former President Trump won the 2020 election, leads a field of 11 GOP candidates to face Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) in November. In a sign of growing concern among Republicans in the state, Gov. Chris Sununu (R) made a last-minute endorsement of Senate President Chuck Morse (R), considered the other GOP front-runner, in hopes of changing the race’s trajectory. “This time there’s a real question, a concern that people like me have, that Governor Sununu has, that if we nominate Bolduc our chances of winning this seat are greatly diminished,” said Fergus Cullen, former chairman of the GOP New Hampshire and Morse supporter. “It’s very clear that Democrats are going crazy over the idea of ​​running against him,” he added. Republicans point to the fact that while Bolduc has some name recognition after previously running for Senate, he performed poorly in the last GOP primary. Party members also say they are less confident the retired general can take his campaign to a general election just eight weeks before midterm elections. “We don’t have evidence that this is how he ran last time,” said Thomas Rath, a former New Hampshire state attorney general and GOP strategist, adding, “I think he is, especially with someone like Hasan, who is somewhat of a centrist As a Democrat, it’s harder to paint her as an extremist.” High-profile Republicans have lamented what a possible Bolduc nomination could do to Republicans’ prospects of flipping the Senate seat in the Granite State. Sununu said in a radio interview in August that “if he had been the GOP nominee, I have no doubt we would have had a much harder time” and called the retired general a “conspiracy-type candidate.” The governor, however, said last weekend that he would support whoever the GOP nominee is, even if Bolduc prevails on Tuesday. Recent polling shows that Bolduc enjoys a significant level of support from Republicans. A University of New Hampshire Survey Center Granite State Poll released late last month showed Bolduc leading Morse by 21 percent among likely Republican voters. “Republicans are excited and energized to defeat liberal Maggie Hassan, who has delivered historically high inflation, out-of-control gas prices and can’t kick her spending habit. Gen. Don Bolduc is the underdog, the Granite Staters fight back because he’s one of them,” Rick Wiley, Bolduc’s adviser, said in an email.
TW Arrighi, national press secretary for the Senate Republicans’ campaign division, argued that Republicans would still have a shot at the Senate seat, saying “whoever wins the Republican primary in New Hampshire will be able to win Maggie Hassan.” Some Republicans believe the primary landscape has changed in recent weeks since polls showed Bolduc leading, arguing that voters are just beginning to tune into the primaries. But some political observers question whether Morse has enough momentum to cross the finish line. “My expectation is that it’s going to be a light to moderate turnout tomorrow, which means that the more conservative or some Republicans who follow Trump will be the largest percentage of voters, and if that’s the case, then I think that helps Bolduc,” said Jim Demers , lobbyists and former Obama campaign chairman in New Hampshire. “I know the governor endorsed Morse last week, but I don’t know if that’s going to be enough, considering which group might be the dominant field voting tomorrow.” The primary comes amid greater concerns Republicans have about their prospects of flipping the Senate. In an otherwise GOP-friendly midterm environment, Democratic Senate challengers in several battleground states have gained momentum as they have raised impressive sums of money over their rivals. In preliminary reports filed earlier this month, Hassan’s campaign reported $7.3 million in cash, while Bolduc’s campaign reported about $83,900 in cash and Morse’s campaign reported having $582,000 in cash. Some GOP candidates have also been mired in negative headlines or scandals. The evolving nature of some races in the Senate led Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last month to hedge that the upper chamber may be less likely to be ousted than the House because of concerns about the quality of nominees. The stakes of gaining a competitive advantage in this Senate race are high. Hassan’s position has been rated by the nonpartisan pollster Cook Political Report as “weakly Democratic,” and the McConnell-affiliated Senate Leadership Fund announced earlier this month that it would begin a $23 million television ad campaign on Tuesday. state. . Hassan herself won her first election in 2016 by about a tenth of a percentage point, and some Republicans see her as a particularly weak candidate. “He’s the juiciest target we’ve got, we just need a strong, capable candidate who won’t blow him up,” said Dave Carney, general counsel for Morse’s campaign. In recent weeks, outside spending has flooded the state in an effort to influence which candidate prevails on Tuesday. A super PAC reportedly linked to McConnell, White Mountain PAC, has aired ads in the state highlighting the retired general’s past criticism of former President Trump and highlighting controversial statements he has made. At the same time, the Democratic Senate Majority PAC announced earlier this month that it had launched a $3.2 million ad campaign targeting Morse and calling the state Senate president “another crooked politician.” “We will not sit idly by while Chuck Morse is currently on the air attacking our candidate and hiding from his disgraceful ethics record — Granite Staters deserve to know the truth: Morse owes his lobbying donors and will he automatically said yes. vote for Mitch McConnell’s extreme abortion agenda,” Veronica Yu, spokeswoman for the Democratic PAC, said in a statement. Carney called Democratic ads bashing the Republican nominee a “badge of honor,” later noting that “the Democrats tried, in New Hampshire … to undermine Chuck because they know they want to run against Bolduke.” Some Republicans, however, believe that the Democrats’ involvement in the GOP Senate primary has its own risks. Cullen, the former New Hampshire GOP chairman, acknowledged that while getting involved in the primary was “smart politics,” he also noted that “the danger, as someone who cares about public policy and believes that it’s not just about winning in the election, is that some of these yahoos will end up in public office in some of these states.” Las Vegas-based podcasts offering $100,000 to find who killed Tupac Shakur Man sued over alleged ‘Baby Shark’ torture dies in Oklahoma prison The Senate Majority PAC says it’s just insulting Morse’s ads attacking Hassan. The super PAC argued that if Bolduc had launched similar ads against the incumbent, it would have responded similarly. Other Republicans believe their primary voters won’t buy into the Democrats’ onslaught of ads. “New Hampshire voters are very smart. Republican primary voters will see the Democratic meddling in our primary and recognize it for the trick it is,” said Jeff Grappone, a former aide to Republican Sens. John E. Sununu and Kelly Ayotte.