GOP Risks 2022 Repeat in New Hampshire House Races

Republicans are risking a repeat of the 2022 election in New Hampshire, where loyalists of President Trump are vying for the nomination in the state’s two U.S. House districts.In 2022, Republicans had hoped to pick up a U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire as well as the state’s two slightly Democratic House districts. However, that year Republicans lost both House races as well as the state’s Senate race, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the GOP’s nomination of two Trump-centered Republicans.In the state’s September 10 primaries, Republicans again are heading toward nominating candidates who may be too conservative to fare well in a general election in a state where moderate Republicans have traditionally been stronger performers.In the state’s First District, the Manchester alderman, Joe Kelly Levasseur, is seeking the nomination as, in his words, a “real, hard-core ‘America First,’” which he says is currently missing from Congress.Mr. Levasseur’s chief opponent for the nomination, Russell Prescott, is running with the backing of much of the state GOP’s establishment, including the state senate president. He also ran in 2022, but received 10 percent of the vote, coming in fourth. Two other candidates, Hollie Noveletsky and Chris Bright, are also running in the First District primary.In the race, Mr. Levasseur is pitching himself as the explicit pro-Trump candidate in a divided field, touting his MAGA credentials in a state where Trump won the GOP primary with about 55 percent of the vote.Mr. Levasseur wouldn’t need an outright majority to win the primary, though. In 2022, a Trump spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, won the primary in the First District with 45 percent of the vote.Whoever wins the primary in the First District will face off against the incumbent representative, Chris Pappas, who defeated Ms. Leavitt by eight points in 2022 and who was first elected in 2018.In the state’s Second District, businessman Vikram Mansharamani and a conservative activist, Lily Tang Williams, are the frontrunners in a 13-candidate field for the Republican nomination.Mr. Mansharamani has received the backing of the GOP’s 2022 Senate nominee, Don Bolduc, the state house GOP leader, and the Republican Main Street Partnership PAC, which pitches itself as supporting moderate Republicans.Ms. Williams, who was born in Communist China during the regime of Chairman Mao, pitches herself as a “survivor” of communism and draws the base of her support from the state’s conservative activist base. She raised her profile with that demographic earlier this year by appearing with a Parkland shooting survivor and activist, David Hogg, at a gun-control event at Dartmouth.In the state’s Second District, the Democratic congresswoman, Ann McLane Kuster, is retiring and is supporting her former campaign manager, Colin Van Ostern, as a potential successor. Ms. Van Ostern lost narrowly to Governor Sununu in the 2016 gubernatorial race.A former deputy assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice, Maggie Goodlander, is also running in the race, focusing her campaign on reproductive rights. With familial political connections both from her mother’s side and from her husband, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, she has significant backing from outside groups who are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on her behalf.Last week, campaign ethics advocates criticized Ms. Goodlander for her “bizarre” financial disclosures, which “[list] the value of multiple easily verifiable assets as ‘undetermined’, including checking, retirement and investment accounts; treasury notes; cash bonds; and several properties or pieces of land, even those the report indicates are currently for sale,” according to the Hill. Recent polling has also suggested that Ms. Goodlander enjoys an edge on Mr. Van Ostern, though neither candidate polls at more than 50 percent.Recent polling suggests that the GOP House primaries could go to any candidate. In the First District, a recent University of New Hampshire poll found Mr. Prescott leading Mr. Levasseur 19 percent to 10 percent. A Saint Anselm College survey conducted around the same time, though, found Mr. Lavasseur leading, with 15 percent to Mr. Prescott’s 10 percent.In the Second District, the University of New Hampshire survey found Mr. Mansharamani leading 21 percent to 17 percent over Ms. Williams, while the Saint Anselm College poll found the two tied at 16 percent.Both of the recent surveys also found that Vice President Harris leads Trump in the state, with more than 50 percent support, meaning that any Republican hoping to win in November will need significant backing from supporters of Ms. Harris.At the moment, the national GOP apparatus has yet to get involved in these House races, signaling either that they are staying out of the primaries or that they don’t see these seats as a potential part of their plan to maintain a House majority.

GOP Risks 2022 Repeat in New Hampshire House Races

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