On paper, Tuesday should have been a good night for New Hampshire Democrats and their chairman Ray Buckley. They got everything they wanted.
They wanted Donald Trump at the top of the Republican ticket, and President Joe Biden off of their own. They got it.
In the Democratic primary for governor, they wanted dependable machine pol Joyce Craig, not progressive Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington. The machine delivered.
The two congressional races were over before they started, without any serious GOP challengers spending any serious money. Done.
And they had the silver bullet of Granite State politics: the abortion issue.
They had the money, they had the staff, they had the hot, new, suburb-friendly candidate in Kamala Harris.
Buckley and Company had everything they could possibly want … except the voters.
New Hampshire Democrats suffered the sort of humiliating defeat New England sports fans have come to expect from the Brady-less Patriots.
The depth of the Democrats’ disaster is still unfolding. The best estimates are a 16-8 GOP state Senate and more than 220 Republicans in the House. Coös County, once a blue bastion of Bernie voters, is now Democrat-free.
But the biggest blow was the blowout victory of Kelly Ayotte over Joyce Craig.
Ayotte deserves credit for the aggressive and disciplined campaign she ran. In the final weeks of the gubernatorial primary, when it was clear that former state Senate President Chuck Morse (R-Salem) was destined for defeat, she kept up the attack ads. Other candidates may have been tempted to hoard their cash, take their foot off the gas. She didn’t.
Instead, Ayotte sent the message that she didn’t like losing in 2016 and she was going to do whatever it took — and then some — to make sure it didn’t happen again.
And it turned out she had a secret weapon: Joyce Craig.
Serious question: If billionaire Elon Musk were secretly paying Craig to throw the race to Ayotte, what would she have done differently?
Ayotte kicks off her campaign with the slogan “Don’t MASS Up New Hampshire!” Craig promptly invites far-left Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey to become her campaign mascot.
Ayotte makes Craig’s less-than-impressive record as mayor of Manchester a centerpiece of her campaign. Craig responds by insisting life in the Queen City was great when she was in charge and promising to do to New Hampshire what she did for “Manch-ghanistan”.
And in the most wrongheaded political move since Hillary Clinton skipped Wisconsin, Craig chose to run for governor promising to pass an income tax.
An income tax. In New Hampshire.
Why not run for the mayor of Transylvania promising free garlic and holy water?
It was bizarre.
Even more bizarre, Craig clearly understood what a lousy political move it was because she kept trying to hide her plan from the voters. She managed to get through the entire campaign advocating for an income tax on interest and dividends without ever saying the words “income tax” or “interest and dividends.”
Ok, so then why run on it? Why even bring it up? And even if she was determined to revive New Hampshire’s last income tax, why didn’t she just …. what’s the word that describes what politicians do every day?
Lie?
Pushing for an income tax is bad. But letting everyone know you want one and then refusing to talk about it is even worse. By constantly dodging, she left everyone wondering if the tax would hit them. By refusing to admit she wanted a new tax, she couldn’t talk about all the goodies she was going to give away with the new millions it collected.
It was utter political incompetence. How incompetent?
Joyce Craig, the three-term mayor of Manchester, lost her own city. The people who know her best voted for somebody else.
Craig ran the sort of race you run when you’re counting on someone else to win it for you. Kamala Harris would have coattails. The Democratic Party machine would crank out the votes. The abortion issue would carry the day.
Instead, voters cast their ballots based on Craig and her performance.
Which is why the results were so bad.
Republicans will be high-fiving for the next few days, and nobody doubts that they deserve it. But if they want to be honest, they’ll give a fist bump or two to New Hampshire Democrats. They did a lot of the work themselves.
