UPDATE: A pro-liberty, MAGA wave continued its impressive primary run, wrapping with a victory for retired Army Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc in New Hampshire’s Senate Republican primary on Wednesday.
Bolduc and his pro-freedom, strong election integrity message will face potentially vulnerable Democrat incumbent Maggie Hassan in November.
“Nice!” former President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social after the New Hampshire results were announced. “The ‘Trumpiest’ people ALL won in New Hampshire last night. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!
“Congratulations to General Don Bolduc, a great gentleman who started his military service as a Private, and ended it as a General – and now his BIG WIN in New Hampshire. WOW!” Trump said.
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(Headline USA) The Republican contest for Senate in New Hampshire remained a tight race early Wednesday between conservative Donald Bolduc and the more moderate Chuck Morse as the final primary night of the midterm season again tested the direction of the GOP.
With about 87% of precincts reporting, Bolduc maintained a slight lead. Yet, Morse’s success was something of a surprise give Bolduc’s commanding performance in polls prior to the primary.
Republicans see Democratic incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire as highly vulnerable in the general election, now just eight weeks away.
But a strong competitor in the GOP contest is Bolduc, a retired Army brigadier general who some in the party believe is too far to the right for some swing voters in the general election. Morse, the president of the state Senate, has been backed by the Republican establishment.
New Hampshire’s Senate seat could prove pivotal for whichever party controls the chamber after November. President Joe Biden carried the state by more than 7 percentage points and Bolduc has campaigned on a pro-MAGA platform.
Hassan clinched her party’s nomination against only token opposition while Gov. Chris Sununu won the Republican party’s nomination for another term. He’s heavily favored against Democrat Tom Sherman, who was unopposed for his party’s governor’s nomination.
Reflectin a potential shift in the party following the Donald Trump presidency, Republican primary voters have chosen conservative candidates over Establishment RINOs this year in several moderate or Democratic-leaning states such as Massachusetts and Maryland, both of which currently have centrist GOP governors.
While the bold move potentially puts competitive races out of the party’s reach, party members see particular optimism from the base as Democrat mismanagment is likely to drive a strong backlash that creates the potential for seismic shifts in the political landscape. In addition to New Hampshire, other blue leaning states, such as Washington, also seem poised to deliver big GOP victories.
Neil Levesque, director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, said Bolduc is a type of candidate who would have struggled to succeed in GOP politics before Trump’s rise. He’s never held elected office and had just $75,000 in cash on hand last week.
Bolduc has nonetheless been able to make inroads by positioning himself as an ally of Trump and his election falsehoods.
“That is because the theme of his campaign and messaging is very similar to former President Trump,” Levesque said. “If it mirrors the former president, it’s been effective.”
Known for kicking off the primary season during presidential campaigns, New Hampshire is instead concluding the nominating process for this year’s midterms. There were also primaries Tuesday in Rhode Island and Delaware, where Biden traveled late Tuesday to cast his ballot.
But New Hampshire’s Senate race is perhaps most revealing about the direction of the GOP. Morse has been endorsed by Sununu, who called him “the candidate to beat Sen. Hassan this November and the candidate Sen. Hassan is most afraid to face.”
By contrast, Sununu called Bolduc a conspiracy theorist and suggested he could have a tougher time winning the general election.
Bolduc wasn’t bothered by Sununu’s criticism, calling the governor “a Chinese communist sympathizer.”
Bolduc wasn’t formally endorsed by Trump, who propelled many primary candidates to victory in key races throughout the summer. But the former president has called Bolduc a “strong guy.”
The final primary contests unfolded at a dramatic moment in the midterm campaign. Republicans have spent much of the year building their election-year message around Biden and his management of the economy, particularly soaring prices.
Some Democratic groups, meanwhile, sponsored primary ads promoting Bolduc, predicting he’d make an easier November opponent for Hassan. That’s consistent with Democratic-aligned organizations backing pro-Trump candidates in key races around the country—a strategy some have criticized, arguing that it could backfire if those candidates go on to win their general elections.
Republicans in New Hampshire and around the country scoff at the notion that being a Trump loyalist—or not—could be a deciding general election factor, noting that the still unpopular Biden will be a drag on his party regardless.
The New Hampshire Republican Party has tweeted that Hassan “votes with Joe Biden 96.4% of the time.”
Many of the same dynamics swirling around the former president were at work in the GOP primary for New Hampshire’s other congressional district, which encompasses Manchester and the southeastern part of the state.
Karoline Leavitt, who worked in Trump’s White House’s press office, topped some more experienced Republicans with ties to the former president and will square off against Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in another November contest that could be close.
Leavitt, 25, said she was “sending a strong and clear message to the Washington, D.C., establishment, and our Democratic opponent that our votes cannot be bought, our conservative voices can not be silenced.”
She also laced into Pappas, saying he “has campaigned his entire political career as a moderate, bipartisan voice for our district. But he has voted as a far left socialist Democrat.”
Pappas also wasted little time going on the offensive against Leavitt, saying, “I will fight with everything I’ve got to stop extreme politicians like Karoline from hijacking our democracy.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
