With some winners championing and others too close to call, the New Hampshire primaries rounded out with Governor Chris Sununu, the current governor of New Hampshire, winning as the GOP gubernatorial candidate for his state. Sununu held a strong win with 67,045 votes (79.3%) with 61% of votes being counted at 11:50 p.m. He was followed by Karen Testerman who had 8,534 votes.
Tom Sherman ran unopposed and won as the Democratic gubernatorial candidate for the state.
Incumbent Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan secured a landslide victory with 60,196 votes (94%) going to her, followed by Paul Krautmann with 2,749 votes (4.3%).
At 11:57 p.m. on Tuesday night the race appeared too close for the race between Donald Bolduc and Chuck Morse, both of whom are running to represent the state of New Hampshire in the United States Senate. Bolduc led with 32,659 votes (38.3%) and was followed closely by Chuck Morse who had 29,367 votes (34.4%).
A similar fate for New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District GOP candidates occurred when Karoline Leavitt, who is 25 years old, led with 17,135 votes (33.8%) and was followed by Matt Mowers who had just 12,944 votes (25.5%).
Incumbent Congressman Chris Pappas, who is a Democrat, ran unopposed in the 1st Congressional District race.
For New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District race, incumbent Congresswoman Ann McLane Kuster, who ran unopposed, won for the Democratic party. The GOP candidates for the 2nd Congressional District race was a toss up, with Robert Burns leading at midnight with 12,603 votes (32.5%) and being followed by George Hansel who had 12,317 votes (31.6%) at the time.
Bolduc is a 2020 election denier who more moderate Republicans view as too extreme to win in November against incumbent Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan, who is running unopposed in the Democratic primary alongside Democratic Congressman Chris Pappas.
Bolduc first ran for New Hampshire’s seat in the U.S. Senate in 2020 but lost to Bryant Messner, who then lost in the general election to Democrat Jeanne Shaheen.
Bolduc has stood by debunked claims that the 2020 election was “stolen” and that former President Donald Trump had actually won. After Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida was searched last month by the F.B.I.---who then retrieved boxes of classified documents which Trump was supposed to turn into the National Archives at the end of his presidential term—Buldoc proposed abolishing the F.B.I. He has also endorsed closing the Education Department.
Sununu’s endorsement of Morse was expected considering that the two had worked together for five years on legislation. Morse served in the New Hampshire House of Representatives from 1998 through 2002 before serving in the New Hampshire Senate from 2002 through 2006 and was re-elected in 2018 and 2020 to his Senate seat. He acted as governor for his state for about two days following Hassan’s resignation in early January of 2017.
Hassan, 64, was born and raised in Massachusetts before attending Brown University where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree. She then went on to receive her law degree from Northeastern University School of Law. She became New Hampshire's second female governor after being endorsed by former United States President Bill Clinton and served from 2013 to 2016.
As governor, Hassan’s successes included resolving an internal dispute within the supermarket company, Market Basket, to save 9,000 jobs, and vetoing a bill that proposed to remove licensing requirements for carrying concealed firearms in New Hampshire.
More recently in April 2022, she called on the Biden administration to keep Title 42, which was created during the former President Donald Trump’s administration to limit migration and asylum-seeker movement across the U.S.-Mexican border. Hassan has also blocked efforts to raise the minimum wage, and condemned President Joe Biden’s claim that MAGA Republicans are “semi-fascist” as divisive rhetoric.
"Senator Hassan is in lockstep with [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer for five-and-a-half years, and then in the last couple months, she panics and tries to convince people that she's some kind of moderate,” Sununu said of Hassan’s policies.
Hassan is, however, a proponent of protecting abortion rights and has accused GOP members of being “anti-choice extremists.”
“When women are faced with difficult life decisions ... the last thing they need is politicians like Chuck Morse in the examining room," Hassan answered when she was asked whether or not she supports a 24-week abortion ban.
Morse has supported the outcome of the 2020 election, but also supported efforts by most House Republicans to challenge electoral votes for Biden in Arizona and Pennsylvania, according to the Washington Post. He has echoed some of Trump’s policies such as completing Trump’s “wall” on the U.S.-Mexico border.
“In these other states where we were hearing things — this comes down to people going in and looking at it and getting things done,” Morse said. “I’m not against the legislature doing that.”
Morse reportedly met with Trump to discuss a possible endorsement, but after their meeting and Trump’s subsequent refusal to endorse any Republican candidate in New Hampshire, Morse said that Trump “certainly has some strong opinions.”
Supporters of Morse in combination with the National Republican Senatorial Committee paid $4.6 million in ads to boost Morse, but Hassan had already raised more than $30 million for her TV ad which aired earlier than Morse’s. National Democrats, meanwhile, had been playing a dangerous game in bolstering extremist Republicans who they think will be easier to defeat in the general elections, and have spent millions to boost Bolduc.
“What a sign of weakness,” Sununu said of the Democratic’s interference. “I think it’s unethical, frankly. I think it should be banned, somehow, in the political system.”
Sununu, a popular moderate who Bolduc had accused of being a “communist sympathizer” whose family “supports terrorsim,” is seeking a fourth term as governor, and recent polls showed he was most likely to win against rival candidates including U.S. Marine Corps veteran Julian Acciard, Jay Lewis, professional logger Richard McMenamon II, small business owner Thad Riley and Karen Testerman. Sununu’s polls showed him with 72% support, and his closest competitor, Riley, with just 7% support.
Sununu is the 82nd governor of New Hampshire and is currently serving his third term, according to his website.
New Hampshire’s GOP primaries also determined who would go on to challenge Representative Chris Pappas in the state’s 1st congressional district. Pappas is 42 years old and has been serving as the state’s representative since 2019. He is also the first openly gay man to represent the Granite State in Congress.
The leading GOP contenders for New Hampshire’s 1st congressional district were two former Trump administration officials who had mirrored their own policies off of the former president’s. Matt Mowers, 33, led with 26% support and was backed by Texas Republican Representative Dan Crenshaw. Mowers worked as Senior White House Advisor at the State Department under Trump’s administration and lost to Pappas in 2020.
Karoline Leavitt, who worked as Trump’s assistant press secretary, was behind Mowers with 24%. She is 25 years old and had received an endorsement from Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Leavitt is a MAGA-style Republican who campaigned on the notion that she is “anti-establishment” whereas Mowers is a part of the “swamp,” while those campaigning for Mowers described Leavitt as a “woke Gen Z-er.” Neither Leavitt nor Mowers received endorsements from Trump this year.
Seven Republican candidates ran against each other on Tuesday for New Hampshire’s 2nd congressional district. The winner will have to square off against Democratic Representative Annie Kuster in November. Kuster is a 66 year-old lawyer and has been a representative for the state since 2013. She has worked as a lobbyist and comes from a family of politicians.
Those who competed for the right to face Kuster include bar manager and bartender Scott Black, Bob Burns, who acted as a former deputy state director for Newt Gingrich’s 2012 presidential campaign, an artist named Michael Callis, George Hansel, who is the current mayor of Keene, Jay Mercer, Dean Poirier, and Lily Tang Williams. The most recent poll for this race showed Burns leading with 32%, followed by Hansel with 18%.