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    • The tight NH governor’s race isn’t just a battle with Trump’s tenure
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    The tight NH governor’s race isn’t just a battle with Trump’s tenure

    Online Niel Posted on

    With just days until Election Day, the New Hampshire governor’s race between Republican Kelly Ayotte and Democrat Joyce Craig is one of the most competitive in the country.

    Candidates, who hope to succeed Governor Chris Sununua Republican who opted not to seek a sixth term, have clashed over local issues including taxes, the opioid crisis, housing and homelessness. But the race also reflects some big national themes playing out in presidential elections, including abortion.

    Craig, the former mayor of Manchester, brought the issue to the fore.

    “As mayor, I supported the largest Planned Parenthood in New Hampshire; Kelly Ayotte has spent her career attacking reproductive rights,” Craig said in one of several campaign ads covering the state’s airwaves.

    New Hampshire law allows the procedure up to the 24th week of pregnancy, but it is the only New England state where abortion rights are not guaranteed by a state constitution. Joyce accused Ayotte, a former US senator, of voting against abortion rights and then changing her position to run for governor.

    “We cannot trust Kelly Ayotte because her actions speak louder than her words,” Joyce said in their final debate on Thursday night at WMUR in Manchester.

    Ayotte replied: “I have not changed my position.”

    Although Ayotte never voted for a national abortion ban, as a senator she voted to restrict abortion rights, including defunding Planned Parenthood., conformable Political facta political fact-checking site run by the nonprofit journalism organization Poynter Institute.

    Ayotte now says that following the US Supreme Court Dobbs’ decision“this issue has been returned to the states,” and as governor she would support New Hampshire’s law.

    “I will fight with everything I have to defend New Hampshire’s right to decide this issue and protect our law,” she said.

    Among Ayotte’s biggest attacks on Joyce: that the former Manchester mayor wants to make New Hampshire too much like Massachusetts. She even adopted the slogan “Don’t pile on New Hampshire.”

    “We’re just one election away from becoming Massachusetts, and I’m not going to let that happen,” Ayotte said on Fox News last year after launching his bid for governor. Since then, she has hammered Massachusetts and its governor, Maura Healey, who campaigned with Joyce.

    In this week’s debate, Ayotte attacked Joyce for embracing Massachusetts values, which she defined as “higher taxes, less freedom and a billion dollars spent on housing illegal immigrants.”

    “Why is he spending so much time with the governor of Massachusetts when he wants to represent the people of New Hampshire?” Ayotte asked.

    While Ayotte has Sununu’s support, the figure casting the biggest shadow over this race is Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

    Ayotte broke up with Trump in 2016 after the release of the Access Hollywood tapes before narrowly losing her run for the US Senate.

    Now he supports Trump. But in this week’s debate, she faced a difficult line of questioning from WMUR: As a former prosecutor and attorney general, how can she overlook Trump’s record as a convicted felon who was found responsible for sexual assault ?

    Ayotte avoided answering the question directly, but said the race came down to a “comparison” between the Trump administration’s record and that of President Biden and Vice President Harris, and that the country was better off under Trump, particularly on the border. south. and the economy.

    When pressed twice more about Trump’s criminal record, Ayotte continued to dodge the question.

    – Where do you draw the line? Joyce asked. “You’re running a convicted felon for president. He is not fit to be president.”

    Ayotte has a “tortured relationship” with Trump, according to UNH politics professor Dante Scala, who said the former president poses a difficult challenge for the Republican nominee: He embraces Trump too closely and risks alienating moderates and independent voters, or reject. he outright and risks losing the pro-Trump Republicans.

    “It’s like walking a tightrope across the Merrimack River,” Scala said. “She’s getting hit by two different groups of voters who want different kinds of things.”

    polls they consistently showed Ayotte running slightly ahead of Joyce. Scala says a strong vote for Harris, who leads Trump in New Hampshire, could propel Joyce to victory. If not, Ayotte could walk that tightrope to the governor’s office.

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