Fresh from their victories in crowded Republican primaries, Russell Prescott and Lily Tang Williams are pumped up and primed for the 54-day sprint in their respective races for Congress.
The question they both face is whether they can break the NHGOP’s losing streak in federal races. Since 2010, Republicans have lost every race for the U.S. House, Senate or the White House save one: When Rep. Frank Guinta was swapping the First Congressional District seat with Democrat Rep. Carol Shea-Porter. After losing to her in 2012, Guinta won back the seat in 2014 — the GOP’s only win in a decade. He lost the seat to Shea-Porter again in 2016. Democrats have held it since.
How will the GOP get off the schneid?
Former Executive Councilor Prescott, who edged out a victory with 26 percent of the vote in the seven-way NH-01 primary, believes his record of public service will help him unseat three-term Democrat Rep. Chris Pappas.
“I have a track record of running tough races in tough districts and winning against Democrats by appealing to independents and defining the reasons for the race,” Prescott said, noting that he beat Hassan twice in state Senate campaigns more than a decade ago. “This election is going to come down to competing visions for our country.”
Like Pappas, Prescott won a series of elections to the state Executive Council.
Unlike Pappas, Prescott did not have the luxury of being able to sleepwalk through a virtually uncontested primary. Federal Election Commission records show Pappas has raised more than $3 million and, as of Aug. 21, has $2.1 million in cash on hand.
Prescott has loaned his campaign $800,000 according to his August 21 FEC filing and had a little more than $411,000 on hand.
Prescott has run an entirely positive campaign, sometimes painfully positive in the eyes of some Granite State Republicans, and he has pointedly refused to say whether he supported Donald Trump in the First in the Nation presidential primary. But all the flak he took from his fellow Republicans in the primary over his refusal to support Trump in January hasn’t stopped Democrats from attempting to label him a “MAGA extremist lackey.”
“Russell Prescott’s blind loyalty to, and endorsement of, the leader of the MAGA movement, Donald Trump, adds to a growing list of ways he’s wildly out of step with New Hampshire’s First Congressional District,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said in a statement released Wednesday. “Granite Staters have rejected Donald Trump twice before – and they’ll reject his MAGA extremist lackey Russell Prescott in November.”
Michael Biundo, a Manchester-based campaign consultant assisting Prescott, dismissed descriptions of Prescott as a “MAGA” Republican as laughable, but said it’s “no surprise” Democrats are “running the Trump playbook on Russell.
“Trying to paint Republicans as extremists is all they have, because Democrats like Pappas can’t run on their records,” Biundo said. “The problem for Democrats is that Granite Staters are really feeling the pain financially this cycle, and that’s not just members of one party, it’s all of us.”
Biundo said Pappas campaigns on a familiar pattern. Whenever he’s up for reelection, “he drafts some bipartisan bill so he can talk about something, but in the end he knows it’s going nowhere.”
Biundo may have a point.
While New Hampshire Democrats have been mocking GOP concerns about illegal immigration at the northern border for months, Pappas introduced legislation just days ago aimed at addressing security concerns along the northern U.S. border. Republicans say it’s just a political dodge, pointing to his track record of repeatedly voting against border security legislation and funding for a border wall.
Pappas insists he’s a moderate and often touts his ranking as one of the most bipartisan Democrats in Congress. However, given that Democrats overwhelmingly vote in lockstep, Pappas earned that “bipartisan” label while voting with Joe Biden 80 percent of the time and voting with his fellow Democrats more than 90 percent of the time.
Prescott says his top priorities include stopping illegal immigration, restoring energy independence and returning to fiscal responsibility. And he pledges to work to pass solutions rather than participate in partisan political stunts.
“Prescott actually understands the issues,” Biundo said. “And he’s not a show pony, he’s a workhouse.”
“We feel abandoned, and that reality knows no party label,” Prescott said of New Hampshire voters. “I plan to go to Washington to fix what they (Democrats) broke. I intend to be a voice for all of us.”
In the Second Congressional District there is no incumbent, but there is still a huge partisan hill for Lily Tang Williams to climb as the GOP nominee. Williams came in second in the NH-02 primary two years ago, and she defeated presumed frontrunner Vikram Mansharamani 36 to 27 percent Tuesday night.
The good news for Tang Williams is that the original incumbent, Democratic U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster, decided earlier this year she would not seek reelection to a seventh term.
The bad news for Tang Williams is that her opponent in the general election, former U.S. Justice Department attorney Maggie Goodlander, steamrolled Kuster’s handpicked successor — former Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern — in the primary. Goodlander has more than enough out-of-state cash on hand to mount a serious campaign.
FEC records show Goodlander raised more than $2.37 million since entering the race just five months ago. Beating Van Ostern did come at a high price, however — out of that $2.37 million, she reported on Aug. 21 having $790,000 in cash on hand.
Tang Williams, who entered the race more than a year ago and initially expected she’d face Kuster, has raised a little less than $350,000, and has $141,000 in cash on hand.
The backgrounds of Tang Williams and Goodlander could not be more different. Goodlander is a prep school kid and Yale grad from a wealthy, politically-connected Nashua family. She last cast a vote in the district in 2008 (a mail in ballot) and didn’t move back to Nashua until earlier this year.
Tang Williams escaped the poverty and oppression of communism when she fled her native China for a new life in America.
How does Tang Williams win a seat Democrats have won in seven of the past eight elections?
She says focusing not on Trump, but on his successful policies, will be her guide.
Tang Williams is also not afraid to criticize Goodlander for abruptly moving into the district (by way of renting a property in Nashua).
“I was surprised that it wasn’t more of a problem for her in the primary,” Tang Williams said regarding Goodlander’s 64-36 percent victory over Van Ostern.
The key to victory, Tang Williams said, is to “persuade the independent voter.”
“Remember, in New Hampshire, the 40 percent of independent voters are the decisive force in any election,” she said.
