With New Hampshire’s primary day barely a month away, it’s crunch time for candidates to get voters to tune into their campaigns. This is particularly true in the open race for governor, where every major candidate has gone up with TV ads.
NHPR’s senior political reporter Josh Rogers spoke with Morning Edition host Rick Ganley about how the primary candidates in both major parties are positioning themselves.
Transcript
Let's start with the Republicans: former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte and former state Senate President Chuck Morse are in that primary. What are we seeing in the ads from them?
The advertising hasn't been prolific in terms of the number of different spots that have been run, but let's lead off with the ad Kelly Ayotte is really using to frame her candidacy.
“She put a cop killer on death row, a tough as nails prosecutor who fought for victims, the first female attorney general in state history, Kelly Ayotte.”
Okay, Josh, what's notable there for you?
Well, I think the fact that it reaches back to her time as attorney general is telling: She hasn't been New Hampshire's attorney general for 15 years. Ayotte's ad also skips any mention of her having been a U.S. senator, but it does get at key points of her biography. And the New Hampshire exceptionalism part – that's a really key thrust of her run so far.
But overall, this ad is almost like a reintroduction to voters, and for Ayotte, kind of a reset. Skipping [her] time in Washington is very much a choice. In some ways, it feels kind of like applying for a job without listing the most recent job you actually held, which sometimes works fine, other times raises questions.
It is interesting. What are we hearing from the other Republican running, Chuck Morse?
The emphasis of his lone ad to date, I think, is also telling. It's mostly an attack on Kelly Ayotte.
“We can't trust Kelly Ayotte. She voted with President Obama to give amnesty to 11 million illegals and turned her back on both Donald Trump and us. The stakes are too high to trust Kelly Ayotte. Chuck Morse will secure New Hampshire's borders and stand with President Trump to defeat the woke left.”
Okay, mentioning Trump twice in that ad there, Josh, what should we make of that?
A couple of things. As you mentioned, there's a big emphasis on Trump. And clearly, Chuck Morse and his campaign believe winning this primary will depend on souring Trump Republicans and conservatives on Kelly Ayotte. And border policy is, according to the polling, a top issue for core Republican voters.
Kelly Ayotte's support, as a senator, for the 2013 immigration bill that included a mechanism by which people who entered the country illegally could become citizens is potentially a real liability for her, as may be her historically patchy relationship with Donald Trump. She's both supported and rejected Trump over time, [including] in 2016. She said she backs him this year. So Morse is hoping to leverage those things and really cast himself as kind of a MAGA loyalist in the race.
All right, let's turn to the Democrats running: Joyce Craig, former Manchester mayor, and Concord Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington. Here's a Craig ad.
“As mayor of New Hampshire's largest city, Joyce Craig took on the toughest fights, delivered thousands of new housing units for hard working families, worked with law enforcement to tackle violent crime and make communities safer, and brought thousands of good paying jobs to New Hampshire.”
What do you hear there, Josh?
Well, I think you can hear what Craig's campaign sees as persuasive arguments on her behalf that her time leading Manchester sets her apart. But there's a pretty generic feel to this ad. It's not the only one Craig has run, but emblematic, I think, of her campaign so far is that it both points to her record leading Manchester, but doesn't actually mention the city by name, which may be good politics given how some voters statewide perceive Manchester these days. But it is where Joyce Craig has spent her life and built her entire career. So this is something she's trying to deal with.
What about Cinde Warmington? What do we hear in her ads?
Well, the latest ad she's running is the only ad, I will say, by any candidate in this race that I've actually heard people talk about kind of organically.
“Every day the trucks roll in from Massachusetts to dump their garbage in our state. Vermont, Maine, they have laws restricting this. But New Hampshire, we've become the trash dumping ground of New England. Half our landfills are full of out-of-state garbage, and the toxins end up in our drinking water.”
This ad both touches a specific issue – New Hampshire's importation of trash, an issue that, you know, votes in the legislature show cuts across partisan divides – and it's a visceral issue also. Warmington's campaign's been trying to position her as somebody willing to fight for what she believes in. And this ad makes that kind of case in concrete terms.
And, you know, it is interesting. It's a topic – trash importation – I've never seen a candidate for major office here ever highlight. So we'll see if it actually moves voters.
All right. Well, now before you go, Josh, we ought to note that these are candidate ads, not the only ones that viewers are seeing by any means.
These are ads put out by the candidates' own campaigns. Third party ads – some are already running in this race. Democratic ads going after Kelly Ayotte on abortion are also up. You know, we can expect a lot more of that kind of thing after this primary is over. Governors' races in New Hampshire often see a lot of spending by outside groups for and against candidates in both parties, and this year's election is shaping up as one where we're likely to see a lot more of that.
