An article published on Seacoastonline 44 days before the 2002 Republican primary for governor described the campaign as “a slimy, relentless TV propaganda war” between Republicans Craig Benson, Gordon Humphrey and Bruce Keogh.
That same year, incumbent U.S. Senator Bob Smith fired off a barrage of television ads attacking John E. Sununu for his soft stance on the issue of illegal immigration; a spot that worked on both Hillary Clinton and President George W. Bush.
“The 2002 primary was wild,” says former state NHGOP chairman Fergus Cullen.
“Wild” is a word no one is using to describe this year’s New Hampshire primary, which concludes four weeks from today. That’s not for a lack of competition. Thanks to the impending departures of Gov. Chris Sununu and U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster, two seats are open – rare and valuable political commodities in a state with only five major elected offices (the four members of the federal delegation and the governorship).
These open seats resulted in six hotly contested primaries and more than a dozen serious candidates.
Only one thing is missing: a real campaign.
With so many candidates and elections, it’s hard to understand why so little seems to be happening politically.
Where are the hotly debated issues, the biting but entertaining attack ads, the passionate campaign speeches, the drama that arises from political battles?
There are only a handful of TV ads, most of which mention Republican gubernatorial candidate Kelly Ayotte — including the Democratic ones. There are a few campaign emails, but nothing comes close to the scale of previous campaigns, experts say.
While candidates’ social media feeds are full of photos of social gatherings with local party activists, the candidates rarely appear before large groups or, more importantly, in the media. That’s a problem in a race where turnout in the 2020 primary was more than 300,000.
Polls show that many candidates still struggle to get their names out there, let alone advance policy issues like immigration or housing.
And time is running out. Next week will be all about the Democratic Party Convention, where the first black woman will be elected US President – not to mention the first candidate in modern times who did not win a single primary vote.
Once the Steven Spielberg-produced (no joke!) DNC show is over, the Granite State candidates will have just two weeks to introduce themselves to primary voters and make their case—interrupted by the long Labor Day weekend.
This has left policymakers and long-time activists alike asking: Where the hell are the campaigns?
Chuck McGee, a Republican direct mail veteran at Spectrum Action, has an answer.
“This has been a difficult fundraising cycle for Republicans. A lack of resources, combined with the fact that Republicans are pushing all sorts of issues in their messaging, has caused campaigns to cave in.
“Microtargeting is key – but it won’t work in November. Our candidates can’t emerge from the primary in mid-September with little or no name and expect to win in November,” McGee said.
But when candidates resort to microtargeting and social media to make their arguments, it doesn’t seem to work.
The latest poll of Democratic voters in the gubernatorial primary found the leading candidate “undecided” at 44 percent. Former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig has 33 percent support and City Councilwoman Cinde Warmington has 21 percent.
Ironically, anti-Ayotte ads funded by both candidates and the Democratic Governors Association are boosting their profile while Craig and Warmington struggle to build their own.
Craig’s strategy so far has been to do a little TV and avoid the press. Warmington’s response has been to do a little TV and attack Craig for avoiding the press. Neither of them has any significant differences with their opponent.
The other question this election cycle: When will Chuck Morse launch a major media attack on Ayotte in the Republican primary?
His campaign produced a commercial denouncing Ayotte for her support of an illegal immigration amnesty bill in the U.S. Senate and her late endorsement of President Trump in the 2024 primaries. But the spot is not running on TV. The Morse campaign claims it is running on streaming TV services – used by about 40 percent of TV viewers – but few of the Republicans contacted by NHJournal have seen it.
Several Republican veterans of the New Hampshire campaigns, including Morse supporters, expressed confusion over the apparent inaction in the campaign.
“I guess they’re waiting until Labor Day, but isn’t that what all the other campaigns are going to do?” an elected official who supports Morse told NHJournal.
“This is one of the dumbest campaign cycles I’ve ever seen,” a GOP campaign veteran told NHJournal.
Four candidates are running in the Republican primary for the 1st Congressional District, any one of whom could be a front-runner: businessman and military veteran Chris Bright, Manchester City Councilman Joe Kelly Levasseur, entrepreneur and veteran Hollie Noveletsky and former Executive Councilman Russell Prescott. But a clear front-runner has not yet emerged. Perhaps more surprisingly, no issue has broken out that would dominate the campaign debate, either.
“I got my first mail from Noveletsky and Prescott in the last two days,” Cullen said.
The only campaign with an overarching message that seems to have resonated with some voters is Ayotte’s slogan, “Don’t MASS Up New Hampshire.”
“It’s simple: It gives voters a mission and gives them a backdrop for the rest of their messages,” said one veteran Republican campaign official.
But Ayotte also sent campaign mail directed against Morse, prompting New Hampshire State Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley to tweet:
“Ayotte’s internal polling numbers must show her losing in her primary against Morse. She is squandering her money with such reckless abandon. That would be the surprise of the century.”
Or it could be a sign that Ayotte, who has raised more money than both Democratic candidates combined, is not taking any risks and is serious about winning the primary, Republican sources say.
Meanwhile, not everyone agrees that the election campaign is being conducted unusually quietly.
“As a party-affiliated voter, I find that my mailboxes, both the physical ones and the online ones, are pretty full,” longtime political consultant Tom Rath told the NHJournal. “And I think more people are paying attention than some people think. But we’re experiencing such campaign congestion that I’m not sure spending money on mass voter outreach right now is the best use of the money.”
Rath agrees that “no single state-level race has really captured voters’ attention,” adding that “both parties have good candidates who are fighting hard.”
One reason for the less heated election campaigns, says Rath, is that “no campaign is about the ideological soul of one’s own party. They are fought within the boundaries of the most likely voters in the primaries, and therefore there is no major ideological divide – not yet.
“The parliamentary election, on the other hand, will be very different.”
