In the First Congressional District, Democrat Chris Pappas is running a TV ad tying his Republican opponent to Project 2025.
In the Second District, Democrat Maggie Goodlander says her GOP challenger has “really embraced Project 2025.”
But in reality, neither Republican has ever endorsed — or even mentioned — Project 2025, other than to make it clear they don’t support it.
According to both the GOP candidates and the public record, the suggestion that they support Project 2025 is entirely false.
“I have never mentioned or studied Project 2025. I have been busy campaigning since last June to connect with the voters,” NH-02 GOP candidate Lily Tang Williams told NHJournal. “I have no opinion on anything I have not spent time on.”
And NH-01 Republican Russell Prescott “has never read it and certainly doesn’t support it,” according to his campaign advisor Michael Biundo.
An extensive search of public statements, campaign materials, etc. didn’t uncover any references to Project 2025 of any kind from the campaigns of Prescott or Tang Williams.
When asked to share the source of their accusations, both the Goodlander and Pappas campaigns declined to do so.
What is Project 2025? In reality it’s a 900-page document from the conservative Heritage Foundation offering its policy proposals and suggestions for a Republican president — in this case Donald Trump — who is sworn in on Jan. 20, 2025. “Since President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, The Heritage Foundation has published a new Mandate for Leadership every four years,” according to Heritage President Kevin Roberts.
But in the 2024 election cycle, millions of dollars of campaign spending and Democratic marketing have turned the document into an political cudgel to attack Trump and the GOP. They’ve spent massive amounts labeling it “Trump’s Project 2025,” falsely presenting the document as a Trump campaign product and governing platform. (In fact, Trump does have a governing manifesto called Agenda 47 that’s unrelated to Project 2025.)
Some Democrats have tried to link Project 2025 to Trump by noting that many former Trump administration officials now work at The Heritage Foundation or contributed to the document, leaving Trump to repeatedly deny any connection — or interest — in the document.
But in the cases of Prescott and Tang Williams, there is literally no connection to Project 2025. But that hasn’t stopped their Democratic opponents from suggesting otherwise.
Goodlander, who just moved back to Nashua for the first time in 15 years to run for Congress, claimed in a recent radio interview that her opponent Tang Williams has “really embraced Project 2025, which is something I talk about and hear about from voters.”
Pappas is hitting his former Executive Council colleague Prescott, a moderate Republican who declined to support Trump in the primary, with an attack ad falsely suggesting Prescott supports banning abortion in cases of rape and incest.
“As D.C. Republicans push Project 2025, to have the government monitor pregnancies and ban abortion nationwide, they’re behind Russell because they know his record,” the Pappas ad claims.
All the while, an ominous “Project 2025” image lingers on the screen.
From a Chris Pappas campaign ad linking GOP opponent Russell Prescott to Project 2025
Pappas’ attack is particularly jarring given Prescott’s commitment to positive campaigning and avoiding negative attacks. And it’s ironic because Prescott was attacked by his fellow Republicans in the congressional primary over the votes he cast — along with then-Executive Councilor Pappas in 2017 — to extend a series of state contracts with Planned Parenthood.
“We worked together on the Executive Council to get good things done for New Hampshire, and he knows my independent streak,” Prescott said during a recent interview with the Portsmouth Herald. “It’s a shame Chris has lost his way so much that he’s relying on partisan D.C. talking points to try and win this race, but I’m more than confident Granite State voters will see through it.”
Biundo says Pappas’ decision to go negative says something about the campaign.
“The fact that Chris Pappas is not running ads telling us how he has fixed the economy and made it easier for more Granite Staters to capture the American Dream says it all,” Biundo said. “He is running from his record by distorting Russell’s.”
According to Pappas, both candidates have been invited to participate in nine debates and public forums.
Tying his Republican challengers to Trump has proven to be a boon for his reelection campaigns. In 2020, Pappas topped Matt Mowers, a former Trump White House aide, and later beat Trump’s former assistant press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, in 2022 by a little more than 8 percent.
“‘Campaign Chris’ knows he can’t win on the issues, so he is abandoning his nice guy image and spinning a tall tale,” Biundo added. “Russell has been clear that he supports New Hampshire’s law on abortion and the 10th Amendment of our Constitution, which gives New Hampshire the right to implement it.”
Pappas did not respond to NHJournal’s request for comment.
Goodlander, meanwhile, told 610 WGIR-AM radio host Chris Ryan she’s “running an old-school New Hampshire campaign” and called Project 2025 a “bone-chilling document that sets out a really dark vision for New Hampshire and for our country.”
“The more I learn about her position on laws, democracy, freedom and fairness, we couldn’t be more different in the way that we see New Hampshire and our country,” Goodlander said about Tang Williams, whose background includes fleeing from communism in her native China. “Lily Tang Williams has supported abortion bans preventing women from receiving reproductive health care, without exceptions, criminalizing providers.”
Goodlander has also doubled down on attacking Tang Williams in fundraising pitches. In a Sept. 17 email, Goodlander’s campaign claimed Granite State Republicans “nominated the most extreme and dangerous candidate this district has ever seen,” and accused Tang Williams of supporting “some of the most extreme abortion bans, with no exceptions.”
Asked if she’d back a federal abortion ban during a debate held just before the state’s Sept. 10 primary, Tang Williams called the matter “a state issue.”
“Supreme Court justices took a personal risk when they gave this back to the states,” Tang Williams added. “I will not vote at the federal level, at all – for, between, or against.”
On Tuesday, Tang Williams hit back.
“Dems lie to win,” Tang Williams told NHJournal. “I am not surprised.
“Maggie is a part of the political machine to silence, attack, demonize, and destroy all the oppositions in order to grab power and stay in power.”
Goodlander’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
