This is part of a series of profiles NHJournal is publishing of the leading candidates in the NH-01 GOP primary.
Standing out from the rest of the pack is difficult in a race where recent polling shows roughly 60 percent of GOP primary voters remain undecided.
It’s even more difficult when the same polls show you clinging to just 5 percent of the vote. But West Point graduate and Derry entrepreneur Chris Bright says overcoming significant challenges is nothing new.
“I’m the only candidate to have received hostile fire downrange overseas while serving my country,” Bright told NHJournal. “Quite frankly, I’m from a generation of voters that is ready to be heard.
“I’ve got the skill set. I’ve negotiated. I’ve grinded. I went through an entire winter one year with no heat or electricity. I’ve been through the struggle and I’ve succeeded.”
Bright, a 48-year-old father of four, is part of a crowded field of Republicans looking to secure their party’s nod to challenge incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas.
Bright’s time spent serving in the U.S. Army brought him overseas to Bosnia, where he led rebuilding missions peace negotiations following the 1995 Srebrenica genocide. Bright was part of patrol teams assigned to cover a lethal stretch of road in Sarajevo linking the airport to the city known as “Sniper Alley,” where high-rise buildings provided riflemen with the advantage.
He later transitioned to a business career that saw him earn his MBA from MIT, later leading several successful companies, including his latest that specializes in facilities management and disinfecting workspaces.
Bright told NHJournal the mandatory orders during the COVID-19 pandemic to close small businesses helped push him to enter the race.
“I watched the actions of the government shutting small businesses down and them saying, ‘Yeah you’re going to go out of business, but this is for the greater good,’” he recalled. “It broke my heart.”
Bright said he even reached out to Pappas’s office to talk to him about his company’s disinfectant services and how they could help schools reopen, only to be “blown off.”
“At that point I really started to pay attention to what kind of Congressman Chris Pappas was, and then you start to see voting records – almost 100 percent with Joe Biden,” Bright said. “Inflation is through the roof due to all this spending.
“Nobody seems to care on that side.”
Bright said he believes his leadership skills will make a difference in how New Hampshire is represented in Congress.
“Standing in a corner and yelling back at people doesn’t work,” Bright said about the current political climate. “We can do a lot better talking through our problems, but we have to get back to the ability to have civil discourse.”
Jameka Spencer is president of Bright’s company, American Facilities Professionals, and is running the operation while he runs for Congress. She tells NHJournal Bright “is definitely not a politician, and I think that’s what we need in 2024.”
Spencer says Bright “sets realistic goals, he tells you what’s needed to meet those goals, and he does it. He’s got grit.”
And, she added, he lives his values. “He doesn’t just talk, he does the walk. He put an African-American woman in charge of his company, and I think that shows where his values are.”
Bright said his top concerns are the ongoing crisis at the southern border and inflation “because it’s just smack in our face.”
“I don’t understand why it’s become such a political hot button,” Bright said about border security. “We’re the only country in the world right now that’s not enforcing its own border policies. It’s a ticking time bomb.”
Border security and inflation, however, are both issues that virtually all of Bright’s primary opponents agree are major problems. So, what will drive voters to Bright’s corner?
“With respect to the other candidates, I think I bring a different perspective,” Bright said. “I’m a non-politician. The reason you haven’t heard of me is because I’ve been out building businesses.”
He wasn’t afraid to take a jab at Pappas, whose family has run Manchester’s Puritan Backroom restaurant for 50 years.
“Like the other candidates, I didn’t inherit a business from my father,” he said. “I built mine from the ground up.”
Bright says he’s wholeheartedly supporting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in November, but he acknowledged during the NHJournal First Congressional District debate that he backed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in the First in the Nation presidential primary.
Bright said Haley offered most of the policies of Trump, but with a younger candidates and far less “baggage.”
“We need a younger generation coming in.”
And, Bright added, he was bothered by how Trump treated his former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, who was fired after 14 months in the administration.
“H.R. McMaster was one of my professors at West Point,” Bright said. “I didn’t like the way Trump bashed some of these role models I looked up to. I think there’s a component to leadership and I think Donald Trump has missed some opportunities where he could have been a stronger uniter of the party.”
Asked what advice he’d give the Republican presidential nominee, Bright was blunt.
“I would like Trump now to recognize how much of a leader he is of our party and try to take the reins to bring the tone down,” he said. “Unite the party. Unite the country. Let’s move forward.”
