The primary election is still three weeks away, but Republican Kelly Ayotte is already firing back at a potential general election opponent with a new TV ad targeting Joyce Craig’s problematic record as Manchester mayor.
In part, the ad is a pragmatic response to the $2 million in negative ads the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) has already run against Ayotte this summer. But the ad buy is also a sign the Ayotte campaign is turning its attention to the November general election, even as GOP opponent Chuck Morse continues campaigning for the nomination.
“Look, nothing against Chuck [Morse], but the Democrats have decided Kelly [Ayotte] is going to be the nominee,” a veteran GOP insider told NHJournal. “And they’re proving it by spending millions of dollars on TV attacking her. What’s she supposed to do, wait until September to shoot back? She’s up by 25 points [in the primary]. She’s doing the right thing.”
In the ad, the narrator says, “Joyce Craig turned Manchester into ‘Craigville,’ a massive homeless tent city downtown. Runaway drugs, rape in the city cemetery, murders on the streets. Joyce Craig’s ‘Craigville’ was a dangerous disaster.
“Joyce Craig: the wrong direction for New Hampshire,” the narrator concludes.
There is no mention of Craig’s Democratic primary opponent, Cinde Warmington.
According to Ayotte’s campaign, the term “Craigville” came from members of Manchester’s homeless community who gave the name to the cluster of tents on Merrimack Street during her tenure as mayor. It’s also being used for the “Visit Craigville” website funded by the Republican Governors Association.
Ayotte makes no apologies for taking on Craig.
“Joyce Craig is trying to rewrite her record as mayor of Manchester, but voters deserve to know the truth. Joyce Craig was an incompetent mayor who led Manchester down the wrong path and would bring the same failed policies to Concord,” Ayotte said.
“Under Craig’s watch, residents in Manchester dealt with an out-of-control homelessness crisis, runaway drugs, and violent crime. That is why she can never be governor of our wonderful state.”
While Ayotte may have her eye on the Democrats, Morse is still making his case for the GOP nomination. On Jack Heath’s radio show Monday morning, Morse argued the GOP needs to unite behind Donald Trump, calling out Gov. Chris Sununu for criticizing the party’s nominee and linking it to Ayotte’s decision in 2016 to withdraw her support from Trump.
“I think we should have learned from 2016 when Kelly couldn’t support President Trump, and she wrote someone else in, and we lost the U.S. Senate seat for 12 years,” Morse said. “We need to unite the Republican Party behind President Trump.”
Sununu has endorsed Ayotte in the primary, and she was leading Morse 59-25 percent in the latest St. Anselm College Survey Center poll released last week.
Ayotte has been hit with a barrage of negative ads from both the DGA and the two Democrats running for governor and have a primary of their own. On Monday, for example, Warmington sent out a fundraising email attacking “Ayotte’s extremist agenda.”
Ayotte has already spent $2 million on ads since going on TV in July, a necessary move, insiders say, due to New Hampshire’s late primary. By not picking party nominees until September 10, candidates have less than two months to recover from any divisions left by the primary race and ramp up an entire general election campaign. Waiting to push back on negative attacks can leave nominees in a deep hole after the primary.
