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A new complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights says the University of New Hampshire is part of a group that racially discriminates against faculty members.

The Legal Insurrection Foundation filed the complaint Wednesday alleging the North Star Collective, an initiative operated by the New England Board for Higher Education (NEBHE), is breaking anti-discrimination laws by excluding White faculty from the program.

Among the schools that fund and operate the North Star Collective: The University of New Hampshire.

“One of the points of the North Star Collective is to advance programming and educational opportunities for non-White faculty, what they call BIPOC: Black, Indigenous, people of color,” said William Jacobson, president of the Legal Insurrection Foundation. “Anybody who’s been on campus in the last decade would be familiar with what that is, it basically means non-Whites.”

The North Star Collective offers a fellowship program exclusively to BIPOC faculty members which includes mentoring opportunities, seminars, networking opportunities, and a stipend. The main qualification for people interested in applying for the fellowship is either to be a person of color, or to “identify” as a person of color.

“They should have just said, ‘We have this program. It’s meant to help everybody except White faculty,’” Jacobson said.

The North Star Collective is a joint effort of 20 schools within the New England Board for Higher Education membership, including UNH. The university declined to comment on Thursday, saying it had not yet seen the complaint.

Nearly all of the member schools named in the complaint are state universities that rely on federal funding, according to Jacobson. Programs like the North Star Collective, which discriminate based on race, violate federal equal protection laws and the U.S. Constitution.

“We are alleging that it violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act because it’s discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin, and for the public universities who are among these 20, it also violates the 14th Amendment equal protection guarantee,” Jacobson said.

The NEBHE is not named in the complaint, since it does not get direct federal funding. State Sen. David Watters, (D-Dover) is a member of the NEBHE’s board of regents. He did not respond to a request for comment. Jacobson told NHJournal the NEBHE removed North Star Collective information from its website sometime in February.

“Fortunately, we had already archived a lot of them in the so-called Wayback Machine,” Jacobson said.

The lawsuit is just the latest in a series of legal efforts to end race-based policies — sometimes called “affirmative action” — by taxpayer-funded entities like universities, as well as public schools and government agencies. For example, when it was discovered that New Hampshire schools and state agencies were using materials that described White people as uniquely and inherently racist, the state passed a law banning that content. (A federal judge struck down the law as too vague in 2o24.)

And in 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Harvard University’s race-based admissions policies and practices violated the Fourteenth Amendment.

In some of his first executive orders, President Donald Trump directed the Justice Department to target initiatives like the North Star Collective that use racism to combat past racism. Jacobson said he found out about the group from a Sacred Heart University press release promoting professors who were accepted into the North Star program.

“I think they maybe didn’t get the message of Trump being elected, that this is not something you’re supposed to be bragging about,” Jacobson said.

The complaint is heading to the federal Department of Education at a time when its future is uncertain. Trump has announced plans to eliminate the department after already cutting staff. Jacobson said his complaint will likely be moved to the Department of Justice, where he hopes it will be considered for an investigation. It could take months or even years for the case to be resolved, he said.

The Equal Protection Project, part of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, focuses on rooting out racist agendas that are enacted by institutions to combat racism. 

“The remedy for racism never is more racism,” the EPP’s website states.

First-term Democrat U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander (NH-02) told a town hall in Keene Friday that while she is determined to fight the spending cuts proposed by President Trump and his new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), she isn’t prepared to commit to a government shutdown to show her opposition.

The DOGE effort led by billionaire Elon Musk was a hot topic among the hundreds of Granite Staters who turned out to see Goodlander at the Keene Public Library.

“We have to create leverage wherever we can and we’ve got to fight back with everything we’ve got,” Goodlander said.

But Goodlander dodged when one resident asked if she’d support shutting down the government to gain that leverage. The government is set to run out of funding on March 14 unless Congress can agree to a new spending plan. Without that agreement, the government will shutter.

“Do Democrats have the chutzpah to do that,” one resident asked.

Goodlander was noncommittal. Goodlander repeated her line that Democrats need to use “every tool we got,” but pointedly refused to say she would support a shutdown. Instead, she seemed disinclined to disrupt the lives of federal workers.

 “I want to protect federal workers and the federal workforce,” Goodlander said.

Until recently, one member of that federal workforce was her husband, Jake Sullivan. He served as National Security Advisor to former President Joe Biden, where he played a key role in the policies that led to the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and U.S. policy toward Russia.

Goodlander’s measured response did not appear to match the mood of the audience. Constituent after constituent expressed their concern about possible budgets cuts — including to programs Trump has pledged not to cut, like Social Security and Medicare — and urged Democrats like Goodlander to take action. There were even people defending foreign aid spending, which is unpopular with the electorate at large.

Goodlander’s example of getting and using leverage for her agenda was a story she told about swapping her office space with a Republican lawmaker. But first, she got him to agree to co-sponsor at least three bipartisan bills with her. 

The constituents in Keene looked for leadership during these uncertain times, but Goodlander kept offering solutions from a politician working under normal circumstances. 

“What can we do, the people that are in this room, because I don’t think we can wait two years,” resident Sandy Marchand asked.

Goodlander’s suggestion is to sign up to get emails from her office. 

When asked about reports that ICE may use the federal prison in Berlin as a detention center for immigrants in the country illegally, Goodlander said she is concerned and would be monitoring the situation. 

Goodlander even tried to reassure the crowd about the separation of powers under the Constitution, saying that both the legislative and the judiciary branches have as much power as the executive. 

“We don’t have the courts!” one man shouted in response.

The crowd, which was clearly primed for some partisan red meat, finally got what they wanted when Goodlander launched an attack on Elon Musk.

“We have an unelected billionaire using a social media platform he owns to direct the federal government,” Goodlander said to cheers. “This is not right. This is not anything we signed up for.”

But later in the conversation, Goodlander said she would not support using congressional hearings to grill Musk about his quasi-role in government.

“Public hearings can be more performance than substance,” Goodlander said.

Instead, Goodlander wants to talk about Musk’s obvious conflicts of interest without the need for hearings. 

“We will be shining a spotlight on his conflicts of interest,” Goodlander said. 

Goodlander is serving her first term after having worked in the Biden administration. At 38, she’s one of the younger members of Congress, though her politics seem more in line with older Democrats. But her voters may be losing patience with Biden-Pelosi Democrats.

“Donating money to Democrats does not seem like a good way to fight back anymore,” Maggie Duggan said.

The law firm that represented Manchester public schools in a lawsuit over its policy of keeping students’ gender-related behavior secret from parents is now involved in another controversy: helping public schools in Maine obstruct immigration law enforcement.

The Maine Wire reported this week about a memo sent to Maine school districts from lawyers with law firm Drummond Woodsum detailing ways to legally stymie federal agents searching for people in the country illegally. Among their suggestions: destroy school records if necessary.

Drummond Woodsum has offices in Portland, Maine as well as Manchester and Lebanon, N.H. According to its website, the firm represents several public school districts in the Granite State.

In its “Immigration Client Alert” distributed on Jan. 21, Drummond Woodsum advised, “School officials should generate a plan for what to do if immigration officials seek to conduct activities at school, and provide appropriate training to those who may come in contact with officials.”

Among the legal tips is the advice to destroy certain student records that include information on students’ U.S. citizenship, nationality, country of birth, U.S. entry date, the date a student first attended school, or the immigration status of the student or their parents or guardians.

“[T]his information should not be stored as part of a student’s education record and should be destroyed as soon as it is no longer needed,” the memo states.

Drummond Woodsum is a major firm in New England with offices in Maine and New Hampshire. It represents many cities, towns, and school districts throughout the two states. Representatives for Drummond Woodsum did not respond to NHJournal’s request for comment, but public documents show it has represented the Timberlane Regional School District and SAU55 (Hampstead), as well as Manchester.

Perhaps the firm’s most famous school district case was its successful defense of the Manchester School District’s policy of hiding information about student’s behavior from parents who requested it. When a mother asked if her child was using a different gender identity at school, Manchester administrators told her she was not allowed to know.

The Drummond Woodsum attorney representing the school, Meghan Glynn, argued if parents didn’t like being left in the dark, “they can homeschool, or they can send their child to a private school.”

Meanwhile, some Granite State public schools are already preparing for the possibility that the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts may come to their campuses.

“I know the schools are all getting prepared just in case,” said Eva Castillo, director of the New Hampshire Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees. 

President Donald Trump’s flurry of executive orders includes a move to reverse the prohibition on agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection from arresting people in sensitive areas like schools, churches, and hospitals. 

“They were sensitive areas before, schools, churches and hospitals. [ICE] had the authority to go in but, discretionarily, did not. Now they have the green light to do it,” Castillo said.

Many organizations focused on refugees and immigrants throughout New Hampshire are seeking legal advice on what to do if ICE agents show up, she said. The second Trump term has ushered in an era in which people in the country illegally, and the groups that assist them, need to be careful, she said.

“After hearing all the campaign promises, yes, I think that’s the new normal,” Castillo said.

Member churches in the New Hampshire Council of Churches are also seeking legal advice to help illegal aliens remain in New Hampshire, said Executive Director Lisa Beaudoin. 

“We represent seven denominations and each are seeking legal advice and looking to their [advocates] for directions should ICE knock on their doors. Different churches are preparing as events unfold,” she said. 

The council is made up of members from the Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church, Presbyterian Church, Quaker Society of Friends, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, and the Unitarian Universalist Association.

“We have an explicit duty to protect and care for those in need, including caring for strangers,” Beaudoin said. 

Between 11 and 20 million illegal aliens are believed to be in the U.S., and irregular immigration — illegal border crossings and unfounded asylum claims — hit new records during the Biden administration. At one point, there were more than 12,000 border crossings a day during Biden’s presidency.

In the first week of the Trump administration, that number fell to fewer than 600.

Though there have not been any enforcement actions in the Granite State, Castillo says the effects are being felt here. A business owner in an immigrant community told Castillo customers are too afraid to leave their houses now and business is hurting.

“It affects the whole community. It’s not only the immigrants who suffer,” Castillo said.

Beaudoin worries that children will stop going to school, and people will stop going to church as they fear potential arrest.

“People will disappear,” Beaudoin said.

Supporters of immigration enforcement say people in the U.S. illegally should take actions to resolve the issue, like returning to their home countries and getting in line with those waiting to come to the U.S. legally.

Trump’s Department of Justice has signaled it will go after local government officials who try to thwart his immigration plans, according to a memo released last week.

“Laws and actions that threaten to impede Executive Branch immigration initiatives, including by prohibiting disclosures of information to federal authorities engaged in immigration enforcement activities, threaten public safety and national security. The Civil Division shall work with the newly established Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group. within the Office of the Associate Attorney General, to identify state and local laws, policies, and activities that are inconsistent with Executive Branch immigration initiatives and, where appropriate, to take legal action to challenge such laws,” the memo states.

Republican presidential candidate John Castro has no campaign office in New Hampshire, no campaign staff, has met with no voters in the first-in-the-nation primary, and his campaign fund boasts a whopping $670.

The tax-lawyer-turned-social-media-political-activist claims former President Donald Trump is costing him votes and donations, and he is suing the New Hampshire Secretary of State to keep Trump off the ballot. 

Castro brought his low-budget road show to the United States District Court in Concord on Friday to argue before Judge Joseph Lapante that he has the legal standing to engage in the lawsuit by virtue of being a presidential candidate.

But Trump’s lawyers said Castro’s presidential campaign was a stunt meant to create cover for the lawsuit. After Friday’s evidentiary hearing, Trump attorney Jonathan Shaw told NHJournal that Castro’s presidential campaign isn’t real, and his lawsuit ought to be dismissed.

“I think the evidence is clear he has no campaign. What he has is a desire to manufacture standing. He has a theory that by pretending to be a political contender, he has standing. And he’s wrong,” said Jonathan Shaw, one of the Trump’s lawyers.

The Trump campaign, the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s Office, and the New Hampshire Republican Party all oppose Castro’s lawsuit. 

Castro is behind 27 federal lawsuits aimed at Trump, arguing the former president should be barred from office under the 14th Amendment. Castro argued Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, were akin to partaking in an insurrection, and he ought to be barred from holding office under the Constitution.

Castro claimed that because he is a presidential candidate who paid the $1,000 fee to the New Hampshire secretary of state to file his nomination, he stands to lose if Trump is allowed to run. However, state GOP attorney Bryant Gould said during the hearing that Castro presented no evidence of any Trump voter or donor who would switch to back him if Trump were out of the race.

“That’s the end of the game for you,” Gould said.

Under questioning on the stand, Castro admitted to LaPlante that his presidential campaign was not about winning but all about stopping Trump.

“One might look at your campaign and say your main goal is to establish the impermissibility of the Trump campaign, isn’t that right,” LaPlante asked,

“Yes,” Castro agreed.

Castro’s active social media feed includes tweets going back to 2021, in which he vows to run for president so that he will have legal standing. Standing is the legal principle that people must have good reason to bring a lawsuit, essentially that they have to have a dog in any particular fight. A person with standing can prove they are being harmed in some way.

Brendan O’Donnell, the lawyer for the secretary of state, told LaPlante during the hearing that Castro has no proof he is harmed by Trump’s campaign. There is no proof to his theory that any Trump voters or donors will switch to backing Castro.

“All we have is speculation,” O’Donnell said.

Rick Lehmann, another lawyer representing Trump, told LaPlante that Castro’s Potemkin campaign is an effort to manufacture standing. Castro, the tax lawyer, isn’t harmed by Trump’s candidacy, but Castro, the GOP candidate, is harmed because Trump takes away votes and donations under the theory. 

“He thinks he’s figured out how to pick the lock,” Lehmann told LaPlante.

At the end of Friday’s hearing, LaPlante said he will have a ruling this week to decide if Castro’s lawsuit can proceed. If LaPlante agrees with Castro, that could mean an injunction against the secretary of state prohibiting Trump’s candidacy. Trump is due in New Hampshire on Monday. He has not yet filed his nomination for the primary.

Outside the courthouse, Castro said he was engaging in what he called “lawfare” to keep Trump off the ballot in key swing states and push his candidacy forward. In the coming days, Castro plans to meet with voters, hire staff, and even campaign for the nomination.

The right time to launch will be once Trump gets kicked off the ballot in a state where he is suing, Castro said. That would cause global headlines for Castro’s run.

“Once that happens, it will really open up the campaign,” Castor said.

Castro said he was emulating Trump, leveraging the lawsuits to get free media attention for himself and his campaign.

“I didn’t get to where I’m at in life by burning money. I’m very calculating about how I do things,” Castro said.

Castro claims he is self-funding the camping with revenue generated by his tax law firm, and he has been tied up meeting tax deadlines for his business and has been unable to stump. 

The 27 federal lawsuits are Castro’s main campaign expense, he said during the hearing. He said the campaign had paid all of the federal filing fees to bring the complaints. Each lawsuit has cost his campaign $402 to file, meaning Castro’s presidential campaign has forked up at least $10,000 just to bring all 27 lawsuits. 

It also came out during the hearing that Castro originally planned to self-fund his campaign with a $20 million loan. Castro believed he would be getting a $180 million investment for his AI tax software and planned to use stock in the next company to fund his presidential ambitions. That deal did not work out, and he has been running on a tighter budget since.  

Donald Trump’s New Hampshire second-in-command was at the January 6, 2021, riot on Capitol Hill, and he recorded a message for law enforcement protecting the Congress.

Go kill yourselves.

“I have a message. If you are a police officer and you are going to abide by unconstitutional bullsh*t. I want you to do me a favor right now and go hang yourself,” said Dylan Quattrucci, currently New Hampshire Deputy State Director for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

“Cuz you’re a piece of sh*t. Go f*** yourself,” Quattrucci said in the video, originally posted to his mother’s Facebook account. 

The video was shot on the evening of January 6 as members of the mob were being turned out of the Capitol Building by police officers after hours of violence. In the months that followed the attack, four of the police officers who responded to the Capitol to protect members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence would end up taking their own lives.

Pat Sullivan, executive director for the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police, has not seen the video but is not a fan of Quattrucci’s Jan. 6 message.

“It doesn’t sound like a message anyone should be putting out,” Sullivan said. 

The mob had failed to stop Vice President Mike Pence from certifying the election for Joe Biden, which would have been unconstitutional. Quattrucci’s subsequent rise in state politics, however, went unhindered. The young activist is now an active figure in the Trump campaign, taking the post shortly after he graduated from law school.

Quattrucci did not respond to NHJournal’s request for comment.

NBC News reports that campaign finance records show he began working for the Trump campaign in May and made $6,500 in June, the most recent records available.

Matthew Bartlett is a Nashua, N.H. native who worked for the Trump administration and resigned on January 6 in response to the day’s events. He called Quattrucci’s video “one of the most disgusting messages I have seen from one of the most disgraceful days in our country’s history. This person should not be embraced in politics or public discourse, he should be deeply ashamed.”

Trump faces 91 criminal indictments in multiple venues, many connected to an alleged scheme to steal the election. Despite that, Trump remains far and away the most likely GOP candidate to win the nomination for president. Many in the party fear his wrath, and seemingly his operatives like Quattrucci. GOP insiders contacted about the video by NHJournal declined to publicly criticize Quattrucci.

Salem Police Officer Mike Geha, president of the New Hampshire Police Association, said his members work every day to keep Granite Stater’s safe and generally do not pay attention to political noise. While Geha would rather stay out of politics, he also had little time for Quattrucci’s comments.

“I can’t defend him for what he said,” Geha said.

If there is missing context for Quattrucci’s statement that police officers should kill themselves, he should come out and make that clear, Geha said.

Quattrucci has been dodging questions about his presence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 for weeks since WMUR first reported on his now-deleted tweets from the riot. None of the tweets and photos appeared to be coming from inside the Capitol Building, but Quattrucci seemed to get close.

One tweet included a photo of the crowd outside the building from a raised vantage point, like the top of the steps outside the entrance. “We’re not gonna take it,” Quattrucci wrote, possibly referring to Twisted Sister’s metal anthem from the 1980s.

Other Quattrucci tweets from Jan. 6  included, “Mike Pence is a traitor to America” and “I’m bleeding for my country. You’ll have to kill me to stop my #FightForTrump.” That last tweet accompanied a photo presumably showing Quattrucci’s hand with a minor cut on a finger. 

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office said Democrat Steve Marchand lied about his role in a political scheme targeting his opponents in Portsmouth.

Marchand, a progressive Democrat who once served as Portsmouth mayor and sought his party’s nomination for governor, will not face criminal charges, the office said in a letter. Instead, it issued a letter of warning to Marchand for his involvement in Preserve-Portsmouth.com and other websites that targeted sitting city council members in the last municipal election.

“It’s pretty bad,” said Peter Whelan, one of the Portsmouth councilors targeted.

Whelan, Councilors Susan Paige Trace, Ester Kennedy, Greg Mahanna, Petra Huda, and Mayor Rick Becksted were all targeted by anonymous websites, fliers, and robotexts operated by Marchand, according to Myles Matteson with the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.

“It was shameful. There were robotexts sent by the thousands,” Whelan said.

Trace said the attorney general’s investigation revealed there was an effort to mislead the voters of Portsmouth.

“It’s about being transparent and behaving in an honorable manner,” Trace said.

All of the candidates targeted by Marchand were defeated. Current Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern declined to comment, as he had not seen Matteson’s letter.

“I didn’t have any interaction with the (Marchand) in my campaign,” McEachern said. “I have no idea what the former mayor was doing or not doing.”

Marchand did not respond to a request for comment. His attorney, Joseph Foster, is currently out of the country and unable to be reached.

Marchand’s bogus website was built to mirror a legitimate site with a similar name, Preserve Portsmouth, and purported to support the same city council candidates the original site endorsed. But it falsely described them as far-right Trump supporters. According to documents obtained by the Attorney General’s Office, Marchand wanted to depress voter turnout among Republicans in order to benefit Democrats on the ballot.

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

“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,” Matteson 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.

Matteson’s letter states 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 are doing in 2021,” Marchand wrote.

Whelan suspects the true purpose of the campaign was to get rid of council members who oppose development in the historic sections of the city. Marchand’s record as mayor includes changing zoning ordinances to make development easier, Whelan said. Whelan wants to know who Marchand was working with and for, and who funded the operation.

“Somebody spent a lot of money to do this,” Whelan said.

The attorney general’s report found that while Marchand would have violated campaign finance law by not disclosing who was behind the websites, fliers, and robotexts if it could be proved that he acted in concert with others. However, Marchand claimed, eventually, that while he acted alone in creating the content he did not set up the websites. Matteson noted the claim he acted alone was the last of many explanations Marchand offered to investigators.

New Hampshire law on campaign finance transparency allows a narrow exemption for individuals engaged in advocacy. Marchand was cautioned, however, that if he continues to engage in similar campaigns he could lose the exemption and face possible prosecution.

Last year, Portsmouth Democrat Committee Chair Shanika Amarakoon and New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley issued a statement condemning Marchand’s campaign.

“We cannot let our local elections be undermined by national-style political tactics. The city councilors who were attacked, after all, are our neighbors. While we may not agree with all of their decisions, they did not deserve this attack, and we do not stand for it,” Amarakoon and Buckley wrote.

MANCHESTER — Mike Pence kept saying during his trip through New Hampshire — on a chilly Wednesday in December where he was followed by national media — that he isn’t running for president. 

At least not yet.

The former Vice President is looking to help elect Republicans in the 2022 mid-term races as part of an effort to push back on President Joe Biden’s economic agenda. After that, he might be open to the possibility of his own presidential run.

“Now more than ever, every American should be focused on the 2022 elections, and that’s where we’re entirely focused,” he told CNN’s Michael Warren. “Come 2023, we’ll do what my family always does; we’ll reflect, and we’ll pray, and we’ll go where we feel we’re called.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence visits The Simply Delicious Bakery in Bedford, N.H.

Pence certainly looked like a presidential candidate, calling into local talk radio shows and making a half-dozen campaign stops in a single day. In between a morning stop at the Simply Delicious Bakery in Bedford and a state senate fundraiser in the evening, Pence was the featured speaker at a Heritage Action for America event in Manchester. He talked foreign affairs, national security, and what he called out-of-control Washington spending. Heritage Action is the political arm of the conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation, and boasts millions of grassroots volunteers who stand at the ready to get behind the right candidate.

Pence took aim at Biden’s foreign policy, calling the withdrawal from Afghanistan a disgrace that damaged the country’s standing. That loss of standing could be setting the stage for another disaster in the Ukraine, where Russian troops appear ready to invade.

“The reality is, weakness arouses evil,” Pence said.

Pence said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to invade Ukraine will need to be met with military force. That means the U.S. needs to start arming the Ukrainian military, as President Donald Trump did.

“(The Obama-Biden Administration) sent blankets and military meals in boxes, but we sent arms to Ukraine so they could defend themselves,” Pence said. “I met Vladimir Putin. I saw what he did in Crimea. I think it is going to take action [to stop an invasion],” Pence said.

Boasting about Trump’s arming the Ukrainian military is problematic for Pence. While it’s true the Trump administration approved offensive weapons for the Ukraine government the Obama administration refused to sell them. Trump later ordered arms shipments held up in an attempt to get the Ukraine government to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

Pence also teed off on Biden’s Build Back Better spending plan, which he dubbed ‘Build Back Broke’ after several tries at a slogan. He said the spending plan would shift America into a socialist society, and it needs to be stopped.

“It would be an unmitigated disaster for American families and American workers and I came to say we’re not going to let it happen,” Pence said. “We gotta shut down their big-government, socialist agenda right now.”

Pence made several stops in New Hampshire, including The Riverside Room, a small venue in Manchester’s mill district. The capacity crowd was made up of party insiders like New Hampshire GOP Committee Chairman Stephen Stepanek, and congressional candidates like Jeff Cozzens and Matt Mowers. 

Mowers said Pence could be a strong contender in the 2024 race, but he’s not going to commit to any candidate, yet.

“It depends on who gets on the race,” Mowers said.

And the “who” on everyone’s mind at the campaign events is former President Trump, who injected himself into Pence’s Granite State appearance. His Save America PAC released a statement during Pence’s visit referencing the 2020 election. It linked an interview Pence gave CBN News in which he said he believed there were “irregularities” in the 2020 election. It’s a comment he’s made several times in the past, though he also says he did the right thing certifying the election.

“Good man, but big mistake on not recognizing the massive voter fraud and irregularities,” Trump said in his press release.

In the First Congressional District GOP primary, the candidates have their eyes on the prize. Beating incumbent Rep. Chris Pappas? Not yet. The big prize in the primary is the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.

“He’s still the guy, he still matters substantially. He’s still the leader of the Republican Party,” said Rep. Fred Doucette (R-Salem), Trump’s 2016 campaign state co-chair.

On Monday, candidate Gail Huff Brown announced her endorsement by Linda McMahon, best known for her role in creating the WWE empire. It’s a “get” for Huff Brown’s campaign because McMahon served as Trump’s Small Business Administrator.

“With Gail, New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District is in good hands. As a working mother and grandmother, she knows what it’s like to balance a family and a career,” McMahon said.

Huff Brown has previously been endorsed by K.T. McFarland, the Trump administration’s first Deputy National Security Advisor. McMahon’s backing gives her another connection with Trumpworld. And she’s likely to need it.

Huff Brown is in a battle with former Trump administration communications staffer Karoline Leavitt and former Trump State Department staffer Matt Mowers for the top spot in the primary. Trump endorsed Mowers in the 2020 NHGOP primary.

Leavitt has run hard on her Trump connections and continued loyalty to the former president, even denying Trump lost the 2020 election. When contacted Monday, she repeated the unfounded claim that Trump defeated Joe Biden.

“I am the only candidate who has the courage to say what the majority of Republican voters here in New Hampshire know – there is absolutely no way Joe Biden legitimately won more votes than Donald Trump,” Leavitt said. “Granite Staters want a homegrown fighter, and that is why I am in this race.”

Mowers said Monday he would love to get Trump’s endorsement yet again.

“I was honored to receive President Trump’s endorsement and to serve in his administration as Senior White House Advisor at the State Department where I implemented the America First agenda. I would proudly accept his endorsement again,” Mowers said. 

Huff Brown, on the other hand, has a far more tenuous Trump connection. She spent 30 years doing TV news, mostly in the Boston market. But she describes her more recent experience as “serving alongside her husband Scott Brown as President Donald Trump’s ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa.”

Trump’s endorsement will be a game-changer for the primary race, Doucette said. However, he is skeptical Trump will weigh in, and he says his advice would be for Trump to stay out of the race for the time being.

“If I were to advise him, all three (Leavitt, Mowers, and Huff-Brown) are solid Trump people,” Doucette said. “How can you pit one against the other?”

Tom Rath, a longtime NHGOP strategist and a Trump skeptic, isn’t sure the former president’s endorsement would mean much in the race.

“This isn’t a state that typically puts a lot of stock in endorsements of candidates,” Rath said. “We like our candidates to be grounded in the districts in which they run.”

It’s hard to see a potential Trump endorsement coming in this race unless Trump sees an advantage for himself, Rath said. He sees a race that comes down to a contest between different shades of pro-Trump candidates, and there is unlikely to be an emergent centrist candidate who is anti-Trump.

And why would there? Polls show Trump remains popular among NHGOP voters, with a net +64 approval rating in October’s Granite State Poll from the UNH Survey Center. However, that same poll found Trump’s polling among all voters underwater with 57 percent of voters disapproving to 34 percent approving of the former president.

New England College Provost Dr. Wayne Lesperance said Trump’s endorsement is not going to move the needle for Huff Brown or Mowers voters, but it could help Leavitt, who polls show isn’t as well known as the other two.

“It will help one of the lesser-knowns the most if it came to them. But for a Mowers or Huff Brown it’s not impactful,” Lesperance said.

Trump’s record on endorsements is mixed at best. According to Politico, many in the GOP are frustrated with Trump’s endorsements, which seem based on whims rather than a coherent political strategy. And the candidates he’s backing this cycle have been struggling early.

“If he spent a little more time and resources vetting and researching where he can have an impact and a little bit less time s—-posting, he could actually help his own legacy and move the ball forward,” a Republican strategist told Politico.

Huff Brown has another problem positioning herself as the Trump favorite: Her husband’s denunciation of Trump’s behavior surrounding the January 6 Capitol riot.

“Absolutely, I mean he bears responsibility. I think his presidency was diminished as a result of this, and I think he’s paying a price. He’s been impeached twice. He was impeached for those actions,” Brown said in a May interview on CNN.

Asked about the impact Scott Brown’s comments might have, campaign spokesperson Nina McLaughlin told NHJournal: “Gail has been a long and strong supporter of President Trump. She worked hard for nearly four years to advance his America First agenda. She would welcome his endorsement.”

Rath said Trump has always operated based on personality, rather than any political ideology. While a Trump endorsement can bring a wealth of donors and support to the candidate who wins his favor, it can also backfire. If Democratic voters don’t have a primary race to worry about, Trump’s endorsement could cause problems for his candidate with New Hampshire’s open primary system.

“He might activate Democrats to vote in the GOP primary,” Rath said.

New Hampshire Democrats greeted news of President Trump’s planned Saturday visit to Portsmouth with a demand: Mandate masks now. Everyone attending Trump’s rally must be required by Gov. Chris Sununu to wear a face mask.

Team Trump’s response: Where were these demands when these same Democrats were attending Black Lives Matter rallies across the state?

It didn’t take the two major Democratic candidates for governor long to throw down on the mask issue, or to link it back to their real target, Gov. Sununu.

“I’m calling on Gov. Chris Sununu to issue an order requiring social distancing and masks at the Portsmouth Trump rally,” state Sen. Dan Feltes tweeted Monday morning. “After Trump’s Tulsa rally, there was a sharp uptick in COVID cases. The public health of Granite Staters must take priority over politics.”

“Where is Gov. Chris Sununu?” Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky demanded via Twitter, adding:

“If Trump & Sununu refuse to put public health first, we must address out of state attendee risk, require masks, and ensure social distancing.”

NHJournal asked Volinsky what he meant by “addressing out of state attendee risk:” ID checks? Mandatory testing? Turning away out-of-state vehicles? He declined to respond.

Sununu released a statement Monday announcing he would be treating Trump’s event the same way he’s treated other political gatherings since the COVID-19 crisis began.

“As Governor, I will always welcome the President of the United States to New Hampshire. I am pleased to see the campaign will be handing out face masks and hand sanitizer to all attendees, as has been true at all public gatherings in NH where social distancing is hard to maintain. It is imperative that folks attending the rally wear masks,” Sununu said.

The statement from the governor’s office noted that “from the outset of this pandemic, the State has not stopped or prevented individuals from peacefully assembling, including marches led by Black Lives Matter and protests from Reopen NH.

“The Governor’s schedule is still being finalized. In the past, the Governor has greeted the President upon arrival at the airport. If the Governor greets the President at the airport, he will be wearing a mask,” according to the statement.

The Trump campaign responded to the Democrats’ complaints more aggressively, calling out what they perceive as hypocrisy from people demanding masks at Trump rallies just weeks after attending Black Lives Matter rallies with no mask mandate.

“When marauders destroy businesses and tear down statues, they don’t need masks. There is no concern about the spread of COVID-19,” Trump campaign strategist Corey Lewandowski told NHJournal. “But when Americans want to see the leader of the free world, a mask is a must? Hypocrites.

“One place the left doesn’t demand a mask is Joe Biden’s basement — where he remains hiding alone,” Lewandowski said.

Asked about the charge of hypocrisy, Feltes spokesperson Emma Sand told NHJournal:

“This will be by far the largest event and gathering since COVID-19 hit New Hampshire, and whether Gov. Sununu actually does a public health order, like he did for the upcoming NASCAR race, is the issue. At a minimum, he should issue a public health order for this event to protect lives and prevent an uptick in COVID-19 cases, not be cowed by Trump to fail to do his job”

Volinsky declined to comment.

Meanwhile, the debate rages over whether protests and political rallies have had a significant impact on COVID-19’s trajectory in recent weeks.

Despite the assumptions by Feltes and others, new positive tests in Oklahoma rose about 350 percent from June 1 until Trump’s rally on June 20, then by just 75 percent between rally day and July 4. In Tulsa County, officials said last week it was too early to make a determination about the impact of the Trump rally, and that the increased infections thus far had been traced to smaller gatherings at bars, gyms, and restaurants.

Meanwhile, supporters of protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer have been pushing back for weeks against claims their gatherings created a risk of significant spread. But in recent days, the mayors of Los Angeles and Miami have both acknowledged these rallies likely played some role in the recent increase in cases.

And in New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office revealed they instructed contact tracers tracking positive COVID tests not to ask if the infected person had attended a BLM protest.

“We’re doing everything we can to keep New Yorkers safe while respecting individual privacy,” said de Blasio spokeswoman Avery Cohen.

Team Trump tells NHJournal that Granite Staters are “ecstatic” to welcome President Trump back to New Hampshire.

“While encouraging safety measures for attendees, Saturday will be a celebration of President Trump’s ‘Promises Made, Promises Kept’ agenda, reminding voters that he is the only leader who can bring about the great American comeback,” said RNC spokesperson Nina McLaughlin. “The contrast between President Trump fighting for Granite Staters and Joe Biden hiding from them in his basement bunker couldn’t be clearer.”

Rush Limbaugh could hardly contain his excitement. “We’ve got three polls today showing Donald Trump at 30 percent or higher with black voters,” he told his national radio audience on Monday. “We’ve got Emerson, we’ve got Rasmussen and we’ve got Marist!”

Rush was echoing a Trump 2020 campaign email entitled “Black Voters Are Raising Their Voices in Support of President Trump. Recent Polls Show Significant Increase in Support from Black Community.”

“You can’t dispute the fact that African Americans have been benefiting from President Trump’s policies,” Katrina Pierson with the Trump campaign said in a statement. “Four years ago, the President asked the black community, ‘What do you have to lose;’ now we are thinking, ‘Imagine what we stand to gain!’”

The new Emerson poll puts Trump at 35 percent with black voters and 38 percent with Hispanics. “If you add in Asian voters at 28 percent approval,” notes Emerson’s director of polling Spencer Kimball, “our number is very close to the new Marist poll,” which finds Trump’s approval at 33 percent among non-white voters.  A recent RasmussenReports poll has Trump support among black voters at 34 percent, and even the new CNN poll has Trump’s approval among non-white voters at 26 percent.

Why is losing black voters by a two-to-one margin something to shout about? Because if Donald Trump came anywhere close to those numbers on Election Day, he’d likely win a 50-state sweep. Minority voters–and black voters in particular– are an absolutely vital part of the Democratic base. And they don’t vote for Republicans, particularly for president.

Over the past 40 years, black voter support for Republican presidential candidates has consistently registered somewhere between “embarrassingly low” and “nonexistent.”  Running for re-election with a red-hot economy, President Reagan got just 9 percent of the African-American vote in 1984. That’s the same 9 percent GOP presidential candidates averaged ever since, according to data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.

In his 2012 race against President Obama, Republican Mitt Romney got just 6 percent support from black voters. John McCain? Four percent.

Enter Donald Trump. His 8 percent support in 2016 was typical for a GOP candidate, but there’s been nothing typical about the Trump presidency. Could these new polls be a sign he’s making progress with voters of color where a traditional Republican could not?

“Absolutely,” says John Burnett, a strategic advisor to the New York GOP and an African-American Republican.

“Trump is the wedding crasher,” Burnett told NHJournal. And while Democrats have a longtime relationship with African-American voters, Burnett says “they never really sealed the deal. Now Trump has shown up at the ceremony and he’s telling us, ‘You can do better!'”

Is 30 percent support among black voters for Trump really impossible?

“I have a better chance of jumping center for the Celtics tonight than Donald Trump having 30 percent support in the African-American community,” former Hillary 2016 advisor Joel Payne, who is African-American, told NHJournal.  “Donald Trump’s presidency is an existential crisis for the African-American community and I would predict historically-low African-American support for him next November.”

CNN’s anti-Trump host Ana Navarro-Cárdenas went even further. “Zero chance this is accurate. Zero,” she tweeted. “The poll must have only been conducted in the homes of Ben Carson, Kanye, that sheriff guy with the hat and those two Cubic Zirconia & Polyester-Spandex ladies.” (She’s referring to former Milwaukee Sheriff David A. Clarke and African-American Fox News personalities Diamond & Silk.)

And it’s true that these polls are contradicted by data from Gallup and Quinnipiac University, where Trump’s numbers among black voters remain both steady and unimpressive.

“Trump clearly thinks he should be improving on the 8 percent vote among blacks he received three years ago,” writes Gallup’s senior scientist Frank Newport. “Based on what we see so far in terms of black ratings of the job Trump is doing as president, currently at 10 percent, I don’t see a high probability of that happening.”

And it may not.  But the non-traditional nature of the Trump presidency combined with his overt efforts to engage black voters means Democrats may have to change their math.  From Kanye West’s Oval Office photo op to the campaign’s “Black Voices for Trump” coalition to a focus on historically black colleges and universities, Donald Trump is reaching out to African-American voters more aggressively than any Republican president in recent years.

Meanwhile, some black activists are stepping up, too. African-American conservatives Autry Pruitt and James Golden — better known as Rush Limbaugh’s senior producer ‘Bo Snerdly’ — just launched a new website, MAGA.BLACK, with the self-declared mission to “Make Black Americans Republican Again.”

Golden, aka ‘Snerdley,’ told InsideSources that Democrats aren’t having a conversation that’s connecting with black voters. “My mother is a die-hard Democrat, and even she is sick of the Democrats’ impeachment efforts. She’s not paying any attention to it. She recently told me her party should stop picking on Trump and let the man do his job.”

Democrats may be right about talk of 30 percent of black voters backing Trump being unrealistic. But if Trump gets half that support, his re-election would be all but assured. According to research reported by the Washington Post, Trump’s 2016 win was aided in part by a national drop in black turnout of just 4.7 points from 2012. In the swing states, black turnout fell a modest 5.3 percent.

Are black voters who stayed home rather than back Hillary Clinton really going to turn out for a Pete Buttigieg or Liz Warren?  If low unemployment and investment in education convince just 5 percent of black voters to cast their first GOP ballot, or (more likely) stay home, how do Democrats make up for those lost votes in Detroit, Philadelphia, Charlotte and Jacksonville?

Critics at CNN can mock Trump’s high-profile black supporters like Kanye, but Golden believes that’s a mistake. “Kanye isn’t alone. There are more African Americans speaking out now than at any other time I remember.”

Maybe just enough to re-elect Donald Trump.