Former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig won the Democratic nomination for governor, but the campaign did not go as state party insiders planned.
Craig was always the choice of the Democratic establishment, with the backing of U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan and influential party insiders. But early on, Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington made it clear she was a serious contender, raising enough money to run a competitive race and not holding back on attacking Craig’s troubled time as mayor of Manchester.
Suddenly a race that looked like a traditional Democratic primary — the establishment favorite easily defeats a progressive challenger, ala Molly Kelly in 2018 or Dan Feltes in 2020 — turned into a Democrat dog fight.
“Joyce Craig says she wants to run New Hampshire like she ran Manchester? Seriously? If so, Democrats will lose New Hampshire the way they lost Manchester,” Warmington said during the WMUR debate.
“And you don’t have to take my word for it. The voters of Manchester rejected Joyce Craig’s agenda. In the last election, they voted Republican while Democrats won all around the state.”
Craig countered that Warmington made money lobbying for oxycontin and was cashing in on her work for a “pill mill.”
“The facts are that Cindy Warmington was a Purdue Pharma lobbyist. She said that Oxycontin was a miracle drug. She was a business agent for a notorious pill mill in Somersworth that pushed pills into all of our communities, and then she took $69,000 from these bad actors for her campaigns,” Craig said.
In the end, the backing of the party organization and her superior fundraising gave Craig the edge — though not enough to get her over the 50 percent mark. (With 90 percent of the vote reported, Craig led Warmington 48 to 42 percent, with 10 percent going to Newmarket restaurant owner Jon Kiper.
In her speech Tuesday night, Craig laid out her fall campaign, promising to fire New Hampshire Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut, end the Education Freedom Account program, and push to overturn New Hampshire’s late-term abortion ban.
She also laid down a marker on the city of Manchester, saying she will defend her record as mayor. She expressed outrage that anyone would criticize conditions in the Queen City.
“In the last month alone, the Republican Governors Association gave Kelly Ayotte nearly $3 million to attack the city of Manchester… and the work that this community has done to make progress for our residents,” Craig said, “The last thing our state needs is a governor who is pitting one community against another.”
“The truth is, Kelly is attacking our city and my record because she cannot defend her votes as a United States senator and her career as a shadow lobbyist,” Craig added. “[Ayotte] used her private contacts to turn her public service into a personal ATM.”
Former Gov. John Lynch (center) at the Joyce Craig Democratic primary victory celebration, September 10, 2024.
While Craig may try to make political hay out of the “pitting communities against each other” pitch, many political observers believe it’s a case that will resonate around the rest of the state. The unkind nickname “Manch-ghanistan” has stuck for a reason, they say.
Former Gov. John Lynch, however, told NHJournal he doesn’t agree. He believes Craig’s record as mayor will be a positive feature of the campaign. Craig was instrumental in supporting economic development projects in the city, for example.
“I’ve talked to CEOs who told me they came to Manchester and created jobs because of Joyce,” Lynch said.
Staunch defenders of the Queen City, like retiring state Sen. Lou D’Allesandro (D-Manchester), say the ads attacking Craig’s record in Manchester, from both Ayotte and Warmington, offended him,
“I think the caustic nature of that terrible ‘Craigville’ commercial … that was a horrible commercial and very degrading to the city of Manchester. A lot of good people live here,” D’Allesandro said.
