A Seacoastonline news article published 44 days before the 2002 GOP primary for governor described the campaign as a “mud-slinging, no-holds-barred, TV propaganda war” between Republicans Craig Benson, Gordon Humphrey, and Bruce Keogh.
That same year, incumbent U.S. Sen. Bob Smith fired a barrage of TV ads at John E. Sununu for being soft on illegal immigration, an ad that managed to work in both Hillary Clinton and President George W. Bush.
“The 2002 primary season was wild,” says former state NHGOP chair Fergus Cullen.
“Wild” is a word nobody is using to describe this year’s New Hampshire primary season, which comes to an end four weeks from today. It’s not from a lack of competition. Thanks to the coming departure of Gov. Chris Sununu and U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster, there are two open seats — rare and valuable political commodities in a state with just five major elected positions (the four members of the federal delegation and the governorship).
Those open seats have inspired six competitive primaries and more than a dozen serious candidates.
Only one thing is missing: An actual campaign.
With so many candidates and so many races, it’s hard to understand why there is seemingly so little political action.
Where are the hotly-debated issues, the biting-but-entertaining attack ads, the passionate campaign stump speeches, the drama that comes from political combat?
There are just a handful of TV ads, most of which mention Republican gubernatorial candidate Kelly Ayotte — including the Democrats’. There’s a smattering of campaign mail, but nothing close to the level of campaigns in the past, professionals say.
While the candidates’ social media feeds are full of photos of grip-and-grin community events with local party activists, the candidates are rarely in front of large groups or — more important — in the media. That is a problem in a race where turnout in the 2020 state primary was more than 300,000.
Polling shows many of the candidates are still struggling with basic name ID, much less trying to push a political issue like immigration or housing.
And time is short. Next week will be dominated by the Democratic National Convention, with its historic nomination of the first Black woman to be president of the United States — not to mention the first nominee in the modern era not to win a single primary vote.
Once the Steven Spielberg-produced (not a joke!) DNC show is over, Granite State candidates will have just two weeks left to introduce themselves to primary voters and make their case — interrupted by the long Labor Day weekend.
Which is why political operatives and longtime activists alike are asking, where the hell are the campaigns?
Chuck McGee, a GOP direct mail veteran with Spectrum Action, has one answer.
“This has been a difficult fundraising cycle for Republicans. A lack of resources, combined with the fact that Republicans are all over the board on messaging, has led campaigns to play small ball.
“Microtargeting is the name of the game – but it won’t win in November. Our candidates can’t come out of the primary in mid-September with little to no name ID and expect to win in November,” McGee said.
But if the candidates are using microtargeting and social media to make their case, it doesn’t appear to be working.
The most recent poll of the Democratic gubernatorial primary voters found the leading candidate in the race is “undecided” at 44 percent. Former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig has 33 percent support, and Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington is at 21 percent.
Ironically, the anti-Ayotte ad buys paid for by the two candidates and the Democratic Governors Association are driving up her name ID while Craig and Warmington struggle to build their own.
Thus far, Craig’s strategy is to run a light TV schedule and avoid the press. Warmington’s response is to also run a light TV schedule and attack Craig for avoiding the press. Neither has drawn any significant differences with their opponent.
The other question hanging over this election cycle: When is Chuck Morse going to launch a significant media attack on Ayotte in the GOP primary?
His campaign produced an ad targeting Ayotte on her support for an illegal immigration amnesty bill in the U.S. Senate and her late support for President Trump in the 2024 primary. But the ad isn’t running on broadcast television. The Morse campaign claims it’s running on streaming TV services — used by about 40 percent of TV viewers — but few of the Republicans NHJournal reached out to have seen it.
Several Republican veterans of New Hampshire campaigns, including Morse supporters, expressed confusion about the seeming lack of campaign action.
“I guess they’re waiting until Labor Day, but isn’t that what all the other campaigns are going to do?” one elected official supporting Morse told NHJournal.
“This is one of the dumbest campaign cycles I’ve ever seen,” a GOP campaign veteran told NHJournal.
In the GOP primary for the First Congressional District, there’s a field of four candidates, any one of whom could become a frontrunner: Businessman and military veteran Chris Bright, Manchester Alderman Joe Kelly Levasseur, business owner and veteran Hollie Noveletsky, and former Executive Councilor Russell Prescott. But a clear frontrunner has yet to emerge. Perhaps more surprisingly, no issue has broken out to drive the campaign debate, either.
“I got my first mail pieces from Noveletsky and Prescott in the past two days,” said Cullen.
The one campaign with an overarching message that appears to have connected with some voters is Ayotte and her “Don’t MASS Up New Hampshire” slogan.
“It’s simple, it gives voters a mission, and it gives her a backdrop for the rest of her messaging,” a veteran GOP campaign professional said.
But Ayotte is also sending campaign mail targeting Morse, inspiring New Hampshire Democratic state party chair Ray Buckley to tweet:
“Ayotte’s internal polling must show her sinking in her Primary against Morse. She is burning through her cash with the such reckless abandon. This would be the upset of the century.”
Or it could be a sign that Ayotte, who raised more money than both Democratic candidates combined, isn’t taking any chances and is serious about winning the primary, GOP sources say.
Meanwhile, not everyone agrees that the campaigns are unusually quiet.
“I will observe, as a party affiliated voter, my mailboxes, both actual and online, are pretty crowded,” longtime political consultant Tom Rath told NHJournal. “And I think more are paying attention than some suggest. But we are experiencing such a degree of campaign overload that I am not sure spending money right now on mass approaches to voters is the best use of money.”
Rath agrees “no state races have really grabbed the voters’ attention,” adding that “both parties have good candidates who are running hard.”
One reason there’s less heat in the campaigns, Rath says, is because “none of the races are for the ideological soul of their party. They are being waged within the boundaries of the most likely primary voters, and as such there is not a huge ideological divide– yet.
“The general election, on the other hand, will be very different.”
