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Governor Ron DeSantis and First Lady Casey DeSantis will continue “Our Great American Comeback” Tour at an event in Salem, N.H. on Thursday, June 1, 2023, at 2:30pm at Derry-Salem Elks Lodge #2226 Outdoor Pavilion.

Governor Ron DeSantis and First Lady Casey DeSantis will continue “Our Great American Comeback” Tour at an event in Manchester, N.H. on Thursday, June 1, 2023, at 6:00pm at Manchester Community College.

Former N.J. Governor Chris Christie is expected to announce his candidacy for president at a town hall at the NH Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College at 6:30pm on Tuesday, June 6, 2023.

Governor Ron DeSantis and First Lady Casey DeSantis will continue “Our Great American Comeback” Tour at an event in Rochester, N.H. on Thursday, June 1, 2023, at 11:30am at American Legion Post 7.

Join us on Friday, June 2, 2023, at 5:30pm for this magnificent and state-renowned annual event to benefit the Belknap County Republican Committee and its efforts on behalf of Republican candidates in 2024.

The New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women’s 76th Lilac Luncheon, featuring President Donald J. Trump.

Tuesday, June 27, 2023, at the Grappone Center in Concord, NH – VIP Reception at 10am and Luncheon at 12pm.

Questions can be directed to [email protected].

When the news of former U.S. Senator Bob Dole’s passing broke Sunday, politicos on both sides of the aisle praised his impressive record of public service, from fighting in World War II to serving as the GOP’s presidential nominee in 1996.

His record in New Hampshire is less impressive, however. He ran in the First in the Nation GOP primary three times — ’80, ’88, and ’96 — without a win.

“Now I know why it’s called ‘The Granite State,'” Dole said the night he narrowly lost the 1996 primary to pundit Pat Buchanan. “It’s tough to crack.”

Praise for Dole poured out of the political community Sunday, with Gov. Chris Sununu ordering flags on all public buildings and grounds in New Hampshire to fly at half-staff in his honor.

“Bob Dole will long be remembered for his lifetime of service to the United States — defending the freedoms of Americans and those abroad in the Army during World War II, and championing the principles of liberty during his decades of public service as an elected official. I join with my fellow Granite Staters and Americans in remembering his legacy,” Sununu said in his statement.

Ironically, his father Gov. John H. Sununu, was key to helping George H. W. Bush defeat Dole in the Granite State’s 1988 primary

“New Hampshire voters tend to like candidates who are a little different. And Bob Dole was ‘Republican Establishment’ through and through,” former Second Congressional District GOP U.S. Rep. Charlie Bass told NHJournal. “Reagan, Buchanan, McCain, and of course Trump.”

Former President Donald Trump issued a statement Sunday, calling Dole “an American war hero and true patriot for our nation. He served the great state of Kansas with honor and the Republican Party was made stronger by his service.”

It’s hard to imagine a Republican with less in common with Trump than Dole, who was gravely injured in combat in Italy. (Trump, like Biden, used bogus health claims to dodge the Vietnam draft.) And yet Dole endorsed Trump in 2016 — after first backing Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio — the only one of the five living previous GOP presidential nominees to do so.

Dole did it in the name of party unity, telling the Republican leadership to respect their primary voters and rally around Trump in order to defeat Hillary Clinton. “He had a career often seen as a testament to absolute fidelity to the Republican Party,” said political commentator Jeff Greenfield.

Dole’s career, which began in the Kansas House of Representatives in 1950, took him through a time when the GOP establishment was extremely out of favor: Watergate. Dole was chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1971-72, and he was closely identified with President Richard Nixon when the scandal erupted. In 1974, the year Nixon resigned, Dole narrowly won re-election by 1.7 percent.

“During the campaign, when Nixon was in trouble and needed friends, he called Dole and asked if the senator wanted him to come campaign on the ground in Kansas,” Bass said. “Dole said ‘How about a fly-by in Air Force One’ instead?”

Longtime  NHGOP strategist Dave Carney, who worked on Dole’s presidential campaign as well as his majority leadership office, said the Kansas Republican loved New Hampshire, “even if the voters didn’t love him back.

“He loved the retail politics, the diners, town meetings, and home coffees allowed folks to see the real Dole: Smart, funny, and authentic,” Carney said. “He ran three times and extended his support each time. He was tough as nails and had a life of experiences that allow everyone to relate to him personally.”

Strategist Tom Rath, who also worked for Dole, echoed those sentiments.

Many Granite Staters had their own stories of meeting Dole and the impression he left on them.

“I was working as a staffer for Congressman [David] Emery in Maine in the 1970s and the phone rang. The voice on the other end said, “Charlie, this is Bob Dole.” I thought someone was pulling a joke on me, but he had served with my father [Perkins Bass] and showed he knew my name. He wanted to talk about New Hampshire politics.”

A few years later, he would run in the 1980 FITN primary, losing to Ronald Reagan and finishing well behind George H. W. Bush and Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee.

“One day when I was a young teenager, Sen. Tom McIntyre [D-N.H.] took me to the senators’ dining room for lunch and he took me over to Bob Dole’s table to meet him,” New Hampshire Democratic strategist Jim Demers said Sunday. “I will never forget how nice he was to me, spending about 20 minutes talking with me. It made a big impression on me,” Demers said.

“There is no doubt Bob Dole built a career as a conservative Republican, but he was one who recognized a bipartisan deal was better than getting nothing. Our political process would be better today if more people did business like Bob Dole did,” Demers added.

Bass says Dole’s greatest moment of leadership was when he brought an end to the government shutdowns imposed by then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1995. At the time, the GOP base praised the new House leadership for being aggressive. But in retrospect, it’s widely agreed to be a blunder that helped President Bill Clinton hold onto the White House in 1996.

“In my opinion, it was Bob Dole’s shining moment, bringing that second shutdown to an end. The House side didn’t like it, but Dole did it, not because it was the Republican or Democratic thing to do, but because he knew it had to be done,” Bass said.

For Rath, it was Dole’s service that made the biggest mark.

“Bob Dole was an American patriot in the fullest sense possible. He served with honor and with courage. It was a privilege to have worked for him. His was a life of service and decency. Watching him tie his necktie was a reminder that freedom is not free,” Rath said.

It had the support of all four members of the New Hamshire congressional delegation and 50 members of the U.S. Senate, but a Democratic bill to federalize state and local elections was blocked by Senate Republicans Wednesday afternoon.

It’s the latest attempt by the delegation to pass legislation limiting the power of state officials like Secretary of State Bill Gardner (D) to oversee Granite State elections are conducted — including the state’s signature First In The Nation primary.

New Hampshire Democrats have been among the most outspoken advocates for the law.

“Today, I’m voting yes on the #FreedomToVoteAct,” Sen. Maggie Hassan tweeted Wednesday. “Free and fair elections are the bedrock of our democracy, and this bill would help stop billionaires from buying our elections, crack down on dark money, and make sure every American can have their voice heard.”

Reps. Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas both signed a letter urging the Senate to pass the legislation.
“The Freedom to Vote Act can fortify our democracy and bring Americans of all political stripes back into the town square,” the letter reads.

Critics note the legislation would prevent voters in the town square from making the rules for their own elections.

“Our position hasn’t changed,” Deputy Secretary of State David M. Scanlan told NHJournal. “This bill would be a federal takeover of New Hampshire’s elections.” He called the bill’s defeat in the Senate “good news.”

“The bill is hundreds of pages long, and it covers aspects ranging from requiring states to mail every voter an application for an absentee ballot, to drop off boxes for ballots, and at locations other than with the city and town clerks. That creates logistical problems of getting ballots to where they belong, and doing so securely,” Scanlon said.

The defeated bill would also:

— Force New Hampshire to send postage-paid mail-in ballots to every voter who requests them, rather than having Election Day voting supplemented by absentee ballots;

— Require New Hampshire to have at least 13 days of early voting, including weekends, and to count ballots that come in late;

— Ban voter ID requirements by mandating allowing voters without ID to cast ballots based on a signed statement alone;

— Give millions of public dollars to political candidates to use on campaign staff, TV ads, attack mailers, etc.

And of special concern in New Hampshire, the law would cover “a primary election held for the expression of a preference for the nomination of persons for election to the office of president.” In other words, the First In The Nation primary.

That’s something not even the more expansive For The People Act attempted. According to Garder, this fundamentally changes the primary, which is currently a state election involving state officials, aka representatives to the Electoral College.

“The point is they did this now, and they didn’t do it in the first bill,” Gardner said. “You had a 1,500-page bill and now you have a 600-page bill, but they are still fundamentally changing how we conduct and participate in our election.”

“This is a terrible way to do this,” Gardner said.

The overwhelming support for the bill among New Hampshire’s elected Democrats is raising questions yet again about their support for the FITN primary. Polls show most Granite State Democrats don’t support the state’s law protecting the primary. And the state Democratic Party recently handed New Hampshire’s slot on a key DNC committee to a Washington, D.C. resident with few ties to the state.

The DNC’s leadership has repeatedly complained about New Hamsphire’s first-in-line primary position.

The primary isn’t just an important part of the national political process, it’s a key part of the Granite State’s economy, bringing in millions of dollars of business into the state. The fact that all four Democrats in the delegation are willing to back bills that endanger it is a telling political development in the Granite State.

Presidential hopeful Andrew Yang understands that out-of-state college students have used New Hampshire’s lax voter residency laws to cast ballots in the Granite State. He just doesn’t understand why some people think that’s a bad thing.

“If you’re here in New Hampshire, you know this is the center of the political world, right? And so it’d be very natural for our college students here to say, ‘Hey, I’d like to have my voice heard,'” Yang told NHJournal. “And if you make it harder for them, then you’re sending the wrong message.”

Yang says he opposes New Hampshire’s recently passed voting regulations that require people to be legal residents — as opposed to merely temporarily domiciled here — if they want to vote in the state’s elections. “New Hampshire should be making it easier and not harder for [out-of-state] college students to vote.”

New Hampshire has the highest percentage of college students per capita in the country, and progressive campus groups have publicly bragged about their ability to mobilize these students — many legal residents of other states — to sway elections in the past. For example, the campus group NextGen America (founded by 2020 contender Tom Steyer) says they increased turnout in their targeted college precincts in 2016 by more than the margin of victory for Democrat Maggie Hassan over incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte.

Given that Trump lost New Hampshire that year by less than 3,000 votes, some New Hampshire residents don’t want the state’s Electoral College votes to be controlled by temporary residents of the Granite State. There are also complaints by long-term residents about the impact of these out-of-state student voters on local elections, too.

Yang rejects these criticisms. “I would argue that the local New Hampshire voters are helped, not hurt, by having more people participate in the process here. It doesn’t dilute their votes. It’s the opposite. If you have young people in the state excited about the candidates, then they’ll spread the word through social media and other means. These are all very positive things.”

Presidential candidate Andrew Yang shoots hoops with students at Concord (N.H.) High School on January 2, 2020.

Yang made his comments at a campaign stop in Concord, NH, on Thursday, after shooting hoops with Concord High students as part of a campaign tour across the Granite State. In addition to lower residency standards in New Hampshire, Yang touted his support for allowing 16-year-olds to vote.

“We have 16-year-olds paying taxes,” Yang said. “And it’s only fair that they should know where their taxes are going. And studies have shown that when you vote young, you’re more likely to become a lifelong voter, which we should be encouraging. Right now, high school students look at our politics and don’t feel that it’s relevant to them in part because they can’t participate.

“So if you had the voting age at 16, you would have every high school in the country actually engage with our democracy. And that’d be positive,” Yang said.

Yang isn’t the only Democrat who feels this way. “I myself have always been for lowering the voting age to 16…I think it’s really important to capture kids when they’re in high school,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last year.

Appealing to young voters has paid off for the once-unknown tech entrepreneur. Though he continues to poll in single digits, he’s received enough support to make the Democratic debate stage in December — something experienced politicians like Sens. Cory Booker and Michael Bennet were unable to do. And Yang still has a shot at qualifying for the January debate in Iowa.

Yang’s managed to pull ahead of these pols thanks in large part to his support from younger voters, particularly those 18-29-year-olds. According to a Morning Consult poll in December, Yang is in fourth place among these voters at 9 percent. And he’s getting a larger share of his support from voters under 45 than anyone else in the field.

So catering to college students and teenagers may be a smart, short-term strategy for Yang, but it presents challenges in the long run.

For example, his plan to let 16-year-olds pick a future president is wildly unpopular with voters overall, with multiple polls showing 75 percent — or more — of Americans oppose the idea. It’s also out of step with moves across country to restrict the choices people under 21 can legally make, such as smoking cigarettes or vaping. When asked about this dichotomy, Yang insisted that 16-year-olds are adult enough to vote.

“You could argue that 16-year-olds don’t understand enough to vote. But that argument rings false to me when I actually interact with them, many of whom are very savvy and understand what’s going on around them,” Yang said. “And the fact is we’re not springing pop quizzes on voters when they show up to vote.

“We need to trust our people. And that includes our young people,” Yang said.