Gov. Kelly Ayotte marks her 100th day in office Saturday. As for most governors, those early days have been a blend of quick achievements, complications and looming challenges.
Here’s an overview of where things stand in Ayotte’s first months in the corner office.
Ayotte’s law enforcement background has shaped her first few months as chief executive
As a candidate last year, Ayotte repeatedly stressed her time as a prosecutor and New Hampshire attorney general as shaping her view of the governor’s job.
That’s remained consistent as she's pursued policy goals so far as governor: tightening the state's bail system, outlawing communities from adopting sanctuary policies, pushing for mandatory minimum sentences for some fentanyl crimes, and looking to boost pensions for police and firefighters.
And at least early on, some of her legislative victories have come in this arena, including a rewriting of the state’s bail laws that she championed from Day One as governor.
Adopting some aspects of ‘Sununu-ism,’ but not all
Ayotte’s immediate predecessor, former Gov. Chris Sununu, brought a kind of populist approach to the corner office, championing himself as cheerleader-in-chief for New Hampshire in recent years.
As a candidate, Ayotte pledged to keep the state on what she called “the Sununu path,” but she has struck a different profile than he did, though there are some similarities. For one, she likes to take digs at Massachusetts pretty constantly, as did Sununu. She’s adopted some of Sununu’s proclivity to indulge in self-promotion on social media. Ayotte also has been making lots of retail-style stops as governor, often not noticed to the press, which is something Sununu did plenty of.
Engaging with lawmakers
Overall, however, Ayotte's assumed a more deliberate persona than Sununu ever did, and that’s perhaps clearest in how she's tried to engage with lawmakers.
Unlike Sununu, Ayotte has been quite direct and consistent in signaling to lawmakers what she has hoped to get out of the Legislature and quick to praise them, at least thus far, when they've delivered what she's asked.
Some examples: Ayotte asked lawmakers to move fast to undo a bail system that she says hasn't worked. They've done that. She's asked them for parental rights legislation that's almost certainly going to hit her desk. She’s asked them to bar cities and towns from enacting sanctuary policies when it comes to immigration, which seems pretty likely.
The big unknown remains the state budget. Ayotte’s been pushing back on the plan the House passed earlier this month, focusing in particular on a nearly $800 million difference in revenue estimates between her budget and what the House approved: Ayotte thinks the state has more money to spend than the House does. She has said plans to work closely with the state Senate in coming weeks on restoring some of the cuts in the House’s plan.
That said, It's too early to have a great sense of how effective she's going to be getting all of what she may want from lawmakers. But she's had some early success, and she's avoided clear early missteps.
Her relationship with Trump remains complicated
Navigating the second Trump Administration is a challenge for any governor these days – but maybe particularly for Ayotte.
Her politics aren't really a natural fit with Donald Trump's. And the pair have a history: Ayotte renounced support for Trump in his 2016 campaign, a move that could have cost her a win in her Senate reelection run that year.
Day to day, Ayotte has largely avoided directly invoking Trump or echoing him in policy. For instance, she has said she's concerned about the president’s tariff plan and what it could do to New Hampshire's economy, but she’s largely left it at that.
One instance that may be telling of how Ayotte hopes to navigate Trump: When his administration clawed back $80 million in public health funding, her response was to say that she believed New Hampshire had that money to spend through the end of next year and that the state is seeking to recoup that money through administrative appeals. That’s in contrast to other states — mostly Democratic-led — that have sued the Trump Administration over the issue.
Ayotte has also been daily circumspect when discussing the case of the German man living in Nashua, Fabian Schmidt, who has been detained for more than a month, without explanation, by federal authorities. Early on, she said she reached out to the Trump administration to get more answers on the matter, noting that Schmidt was living in her own hometown of Nashua. But we haven't really heard much about that since, nor is there any sense of her administration being that interested in getting to the bottom of that case.
Some big jobs to fill in the weeks ahead
Even though it’s still fairly early in her term, Ayotte already has big decisions to make about critical state jobs: A new commissioner for the Department of Education and possibly a new attorney general. News that a seat is opening up on the state Supreme Court also broke just this week.
We don’t yet know how Ayotte is leaning in any of these cases, but they are all appointments that could prove telling. Her choice on education commissioner, in particular, will be interesting. Ayotte has been quite vocal about her support for school choice but also says New Hampshire should have the best public schools in the country. She often stresses that she attended Nashua public schools, and that her husband now teaches middle school math. So she says something for everyone when it comes to education.
There is no doubt current Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut has been a lightning rod in that role, in part because he'd never worked in education before Sununu installed him in the job eight years ago. Ayotte has said experience in education is important to her when choosing a new commissioner, but hasn't really specified what she means by that.
As far as the attorney general goes, that’s a job that Ayotte herself has held, and her pick — whether it’s reappointment for current AG John Formella or a new person altogether — will almost certainly be someone with some prosecutorial experience.
It would also be a surprise if Ayotte’s Supreme Court pick had not also spent time as a prosecutor, given her own background. But all of Ayotte’s choices for these jobs will give us a better sense of what her vision for state government is and the kind of people she thinks can help her to realize it.
