The Stefany Shaheen cakewalk in the NH-01 Democratic Primary is starting to look like a race.
On Monday, Iraq War veteran and former Obama administration official Maura Sullivan said she has raised nearly $800,000 since announcing her candidacy in April.
That’s more than the $525,000 that presumed frontrunner Stefany Shaheen — daughter of outgoing U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen — announced in her first fundraising filing. While Shaheen formally announced her candidacy nearly two months after Sullivan, she also has the advantage of having a sitting U.S. senator as her mom and the family fundraising list.
Political professionals are confident that Stefany Shaheen will have all the money she needs in the primary. But if Sullivan, who came in second in the 2018 primary for this seat, can continue to match her fundraising, that success could hurt Shaheen’s strategy of emerging as the “inevitable” candidate.
Sullivan has yet to show any sign of backing down.
“I’ve taken on tough fights before – in the Marines, as Assistant Secretary in the VA under President Obama, and in the Department of Defense. Republicans will stop at nothing to try and flip this seat, and with so much at stake for New Hampshire and our country, I’m not going to let up to raise the necessary funds to win,” Sullivan said in a statement.
According to the Sullivan campaign, 573 of her donors are from New Hampshire, 85 percent of whom donated $100 or less, and she has nearly $550,000 on hand.
Shaheen reports that she has more than 880 Granite State donors, and 82 percent of her donations were $100 or less. She has just over $400,000 cash on hand.
A third Democrat in the race, Harvard instructor and Hampton Select Board member Carleigh Beriont announced on Monday that she had raised more than $160,000 from over 1,000 individual donors.
After launching her candidacy in early June, Beriont said she raised more than $100,000 in the first 24 hours. “These numbers reflect what we’ve felt on the ground from the beginning. People are ready for bold, fresh leadership that gets things done,” Beriont said at the time. “I’m honored by the early support and energized by the coalition we’re building.”
Democrat Christian Urrutia entered the race a week ago and has yet to announce any fundraising figures.
The Stefany Shaheen campaign has not been shy about leaning into her status as Sen. Shaheen’s daughter. On Monday, the campaign sent a fundraising email headlined, “My first phone bank,” featuring a photo of Stefany as a young girl playing with a toy phone.
“I was six, and my mom, who was then managing Paul McEachern’s run for governor, gave me a small receipt box of notecards so I could ‘make calls’ too,” Stefany Shaheen wrote.
The mom-based marketing has fed accusations that Shaheen is running a “nepo baby” campaign, relying on her family name rather than her personal accomplishments.
One longtime political operative told NHJournal on background that, while the race appears to be Stefany Shaheen’s to lose, her campaign has a 2008 vibe.
“Stefany is supposed to win, but I was here in 2008, and you know who else was supposed to win? Hillary Clinton. But Barack Obama ran anyway, and look how that turned out.”
