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Call him Steve Two Times.

Steve Marchand, the twice-failed progressive candidate for governor, was issued the second warning of his political career by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, this one for deceptive campaign materials.

Assistant Attorney General Brendan O’Donnell sent Marchand a letter Wednesday stating that he is responsible for double-sided handbills targeting former Portsmouth Mayor Rick Becksted and former City Councilors Paige Trace, Petra Huda, Peter Whelan and Esther Kennedy in the 2021 election. However, that investigation is being closed without further action.

Marchand violated state campaign law with the handbills that he admits he paid for by failing to disclose his name on the materials. But he won’t be charged since he claimed to have acted alone, according to O’Donnell’s letter.

Under the United States Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio, individuals are exempted from disclosure laws as long as they are acting alone and not part of an organized campaign. Marchand earns his living as a political consultant.

Marchand did not respond to a request for comment.

Last year, Assistant Attorney General Myles Matteson concluded Marchand was responsible for the anonymous Preserve-Portsmouth.com and other websites targeting Becksted, Trace, Huda, Whelan, and Kennedy. Again, Marchand was let off with a warning based on the McIntyre ruling.

Marchand targeted the five public officials with anonymous websites, fliers, and robo texts, painting them as too conservative for the city and linking them to former President Donald Trump. According to documents obtained by the Attorney General’s Office, Marchand planned to depress voter turnout among Republicans in order to benefit Democrats on the ballot. 

According to Matteson’s letter, Marchand initially lied to investigator Anna Croteau when she questioned him about his part in the campaign.

“When she first asked about Preserve-Portsmouth.com, you stated that you had heard of the website. You denied you had ever claimed responsibility for the website but noted that other people had been saying you were responsible for it,” Mattson wrote. 

However, Croteau already had screenshots of a text conversation in which Marchand took credit for the content of the websites. 

“To be very clear, I am the one to create the content,” Marchand wrote in the text.

The legal opinion that Marchand acted alone based on his own statements to investigators seems to fly in the face of the evidence of collaboration uncovered in the investigation. 

The Attorney General’s Office has records of Marchand’s communications with at least four other people about the campaign, in which he stated the goal was to create guilt by association aimed at the targeted candidates, linking them to Trump in the mind of Portsmouth voters.

“(i)s really meant to help get Democrats who gave Becksted and others a vote in 2019 to really think about what they were doing in 2021,” Marchand wrote. 

Matteson wrote the purpose of the anonymous campaigns clear from Marchand’s statements to the others involved.

“It is clear from your own correspondence and admissions that your intended purpose of the site was to influence the Portsmouth City Council election,” Matteson wrote.

Marchand’s campaign seemed to work, as none of the candidates targeted by Marchand won their races.

Marchand lost Democratic gubernatorial primaries to Colin Van Ostern in 2016 and Molly Kelley in 2018. In both campaigns,  Marchand painted himself as a progressive champion when he ran, calling for tighter gun control, universal healthcare, and opposition to the Northern Pass electric transmission line project.

Marchand also ran a failed primary campaign from the left against Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in 2008. He hasn’t yet declared any plans for a second race for Senate.

Former state Sen. Melanie Levesque wants to be the Granite State’s next secretary of state, giving her the authority to oversee the state’s elections.

But critics say that would conflict with her current position: “Senior advisor to the New Hampshire Democratic Party.” And she is also a representative of a far-left organization that targeted New Hampshire’s election laws and promotes conspiracy theories about New Hampshire’s electoral college votes being “stolen.”

Levesque, an outspoken progressive Democrat, lost her bid to unseat Republican Kevin Avard earlier this month. Despite losing by nearly 700 votes, she made the odd request for a recount of her race.

But Thursday morning, she dropped her recount demand and instead released a statement announcing her intent to challenge current Secretary of State David Scanlan. The secretary of state is selected by the state legislature.

“It is no secret. Over the past decade in New Hampshire, our sacred right — the right to vote — has been under attack. New Hampshire has become home to some of the most aggressive attacks on our democracy,” Levesque said. “New Hampshire desperately needs a new secretary of state that will work tirelessly to ensure that every eligible voter can cast a ballot without unnecessary government interference.”

New Hampshire has a tradition of nonpartisanship in its Secretary of State’s Office, established by legendary Secretary Bill Gardner, who retired last January as the nation’s longest-serving secretary of state. Though a former Democratic state representative, Gardner established a strong reputation for working with both sides of the aisle, angering his fellow Democrats by serving on President Trump’s voter fraud commission.

In 2018, Democrats unhappy with Gardner supported failed gubernatorial candidate Colin Van Ostern for the position. Gardner picked up GOP support and was re-elected by a one-vote margin.

Scanlan, who spent 20 years as Gardner’s deputy, said he feels comfortable with his chances of keeping his job when the legislature votes. Asked about Levesque’s candidacy, he told NHJournal, “She’s welcome to do that.”

As a senator, Levesque chaired the Senate Election Law Committee where she advocated allowing unlimited mail-in ballots and voter registration over the internet.

Levesque is also an outspoken advocate of the federal “For The People Act” which would override New Hampshire’s election laws, end voter ID mandates, and force New Hampshire to provide a ballot to everyone without asking for identification. It would also override laws banning ballot harvesting (as long as the harvesters are not paid per ballot) and mandate curbside voting.

Levesque is such a strong advocate of those progressive voting policies she recorded a video on the anniversary of the House of Representatives’ passage of the “For the People Act” with fellow Democrat, state Sen. Tom Sherman.

The New Hampshire Democratic Party declined requests for comment about Levesque’s current position with the party. Levesque also refused to respond to reporters’ questions.

And a progressive group called The States Project features Levesque on its website, along with it goal to “block rightwing policies that harm New Hampshirites [sic] from becoming law and protect the Granite State’s four electoral votes from being stolen in the next presidential election.”

It also brags about its partisan involvement in New Hampshire’s legislative elections. “The States Project was early to identify the New Hampshire Senate as the most endangered majority in the country in 2020, after helping to flip it in 2018 by only 300 votes.”

Republicans immediately raised concerns about a partisan activist potentially serving in a position of overseeing the state’s elections.

“New Hampshire’s secretary of state has a historic record of working in a nonpartisan way to advocate for our election processes,” said Sen. Regina Birdsell (R-Derry), who serves on the Election Law and Municipal Affairs Committee. “I don’t believe anyone serving as a partisan advisor such as Mrs. Levesque can be entrusted to fulfill that role with the objectivity required.”

For his part, Scanlan has made increasing voter trust in the state’s election process. He created the Special Committee on Voter Confidence to address concerns about election integrity in New Hampshire. That committee has found no evidence of wide-scale voter fraud, and it is expected to issue its report in the coming weeks.

If the GOP backs Scanlan over Levesque, the narrow Republican majority could carry him to his first elected term in office, aided by the GOP’s 14-10 majority in the Senate. Republicans looked like they cemented their small lead over Democrats on Thursday with the reopening of the Hillsborough 16 district election that is likely to return the seat to Republican Larry Gagne.