An Independent ‘Spoiler’ Candidate Sues To Get On U.S. Senate Ballot in New Hampshire To Punish Republicans

PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire — All eyes are on the Maine Senate race, but in neighboring New Hampshire, a legal drama is unfolding that could influence the outcome of this battleground state’s Senate race — and who controls the upper chamber. A libertarian activist and entrepreneur, Aaron Day, is suing the New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlon in federal court to get on the ballot as an independent in the U.S. Senate race. Mr. Day is not running because he thinks he can win; his intention is to “spoil” the election by syphoning right-leaning voters away from the likely Republican nominee, former Senator, John E. Sununu.“There’s intent behind it. I’m not just doing this for the sake of being a spoiler,” Mr. Day tells The New York Sun. He says he’s trying to get “accountability” from President Trump and the Republican Party, who he says have reneged on their promises to “end the war on crypto” and not start any new wars abroad.If he gets on the ballot, this won’t be Mr. Day’s first rodeo as a “spoiler” candidate. In 2016, he ran for Senate in New Hampshire as an independent, garnering 17,000 votes. The Republican incumbent, Kelly Ayotte, lost reelection that year to the Democrat, Maggie Hassan, by only 1,017 votes.New Hampshire is a must win for Democrats if they have any shot at retaking the Senate. The seat is currently held by Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who is retiring. The state’s primary is in September, but polls show the likely Democratic nominee will be Congressman Chris Pappas.New Hampshire is a purple state with a Republican trifecta, but it hasn’t elected a Republican to federal office in over a decade. Mr. Pappas is leading Mr. Sununu in polls, though the race is tightening. A University of New Hampshire poll in late June shows Mr. Sununu trailing Mr. Pappas by only three points. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the seat “Lean D.”Republicans are also eying the state as a potential pick up. Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Sununu early, and the Senate Leadership Fund is investing $17 million in the race. One Nation, a group aligned with SLF just dropped a $6 million anti-Pappas TV ad buy. Americans for Prosperity endorsed Mr. Sununu, and the state director Greg Moore told the Sun they’ve already invested $2 million in digital ads. Turning Point Action is investing millions in the state, holding “Chase the Vote” trainings in their new Manchester office to help turn out low propensity voters.“Don’t sleep on New Hampshire,” Turning Point USA’s chief operating officer, Tyler Bowyer, posted to X this month with a poll showing the tightening race.In his lawsuit, Mr. Day contends that Mr. Scanlon violated the United State Constitution when his office rejected Mr. Day’s filing to run for office because he was registered to vote in a different New Hampshire town from the one where he lives. Mr. Day says he filed a new voter registration form and resubmitted his paperwork to run but was again rejected because, he was told, state law requires he be registered before the start of the candidate filing period.At a court hearing in Concord on Monday, Judge Andrea Johnstone asked Mr. Day and the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office to focus on U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton in their briefs. This 1995 Supreme Court precedent struck down state-enacted term limits for Congress, ruling that states do not have the constitutional authority to add new restrictions for federal office.Judge Johnstone’s suggestion to focus on this case portends well for Mr. Day. The only preconditions to run for Senate listed in the Constitution are that a person be 30 years of age, a United States citizen for the last nine years, and live in the state they represent at the time their term starts. The judge also promised to expedite the hearings and decide in time for Mr. Day to be able to get on the ballot should the court rule in his favor. The next hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.Mr. Day says that no one took him seriously when he launched his campaign in 2016, but they should now. Mr. Day is a former chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire and a former executive director of the Free State Project. The FSP is a migration movement that encourages liberty lovers to move to the “Live Free or Die” state to influence state politics and create a libertarian homeland. There are between 7- and 10,000 Free Staters.Mr. Day has four demands on his campaign website that he says, if President Trump fulfills, he will drop his spoiler bid. The first is to free seven men he calls “crypto political prisoners.” He also wants an end to the military selective service system, to “kill the Clarity Act” in Congress — a bill he says will set up a “surveillance regime”— and for the Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, to lose his job.“Trump is fundamentally the art of the deal guy,” Mr. Day says, “so I’m still holding out hope that I don’t need to ultimately run, but I certainly will run if I need to, and I’ve proven that it will work.”When asked whether a Trump pardon of one or several of the “cryptocurrency prisoners” he lists would be enough for him to drop his bid, Mr. Day said he’s “not going to give away my — what I’m willing to accept, it’ll depend on how strong my position is.” In other words, he may be up for a negotiation. “If he makes it onto the general election ballot, Free Stater Aaron Day will give libertarian-minded Granite Staters a place to voice their frustration over John Sununu’s total subservience to Donald Trump, the D.C. Republican establishment, and corporate special interests,” the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, Ray Buckley, tells the Sun. “Any efforts to keep Day off of the ballot will only make his case stronger.”The Sununu campaign did not immediately return the Sun’s request for comment.Mr. Day’s demands and his pro-cryptocurrency and antiwar platform may appeal to some liberty Republicans who are upset over Congressman Thomas Massie’s loss in Kentucky or the war in Iran. The founder of the Free State Project, a Yale-trained political scientist and senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, Jason Sorens, says he doesn’t think Mr. Day will get as much support this year as he did in 2016. Mr. Sorens says Free Staters have in the last ten years adopted a more concerted strategy to work within the Republican Party to score liberty wins. “John E. Sununu seems to have more support, broader support among Republicans, including libertarian-leaning Republicans,” Mr. Sorens tells the Sun, as compared to Ms. Ayotte in 2016. “But of course, you never know, and I don’t blame Democrats for wanting Day on the ballot.”“Aaron Day may be well-intentioned, but his strategies are massively unpopular with Free Staters and there is strong evidence that they do not work,” a Free Stater and chairman of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, Jeremy Kauffman, tells the Sun. Mr. Day says his “base is not Free Staters.” He mentions disillusioned MAGA voters and Tucker Carlson, Mr. Massie, and Marjorie Taylor Green. “It’s becoming a mainstream political topic, the idea of sitting this one out for the purpose of internal repair within the Republican Party,” he says.A Democratic strategist from New Hampshire, Scott Merrick, tells the Sun the Senate race will be an “uphill battle for Sununu,” given Mr. Trump’s dismal approval rating in New Hampshire and Democrat voter enthusiasm this cycle. “I don’t know that Democrats are really focused on Aaron Day at all,” he says.

An Independent ‘Spoiler’ Candidate Sues To Get On U.S. Senate Ballot in New Hampshire To Punish Republicans

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