Ahead of the general election on Nov. 3, NHPR is sitting down with some third-party and independent candidates on the ballot.
Edmond LaPlante, a mechanic, Marine Corps veteran and chair of the Constitution Party of New Hampshire from Richmond is running for the U.S. Senate.
LaPlante spoke with Morning Edition host Rick Ganley about his campaign
Find all of our 2026 election coverage here.
For listeners who may not know, can you quickly define what the Constitution Party is and what it stands for?
The Constitution Party, you know like the name suggests, the Constitution. Because I believe, myself, that the Constitution is the one thing that should bind everybody. Whether you're left or whether you're right or in between, that's the law of the land and it's the one thing that should bring everybody together and unite everybody together is the belief in the Constitution and the guidance of it.
If you were elected to the Senate, what is the one specific issue that you'd want to prioritize?
Constitution obeyance, basically. To make sure that everybody is going by what is set forth in the
Constitution, not straying from it. You know, I noticed that a lot of the senators and candidates are promising things that are not allowed in the Constitution. For example, Article 1, Section 8 lists 18 enumerated powers in
the Constitution. And I noticed these guys are like, we're going to lower your gas prices. We're going to lower. There's 100 senators, so unless you get all 100 of them on board to vote for that stuff, I just don't see that happening.
How would you specifically address something like that, though, working with those other people or other parties?
Sure. I'd look and see government overreach...and I'd look to see, you know, where I can meet — for example Paige Beauchemin. She's a Democrat and I've had good conversations with her because I don't approach the thing as, you know, red versus blue or I'm going to disagree with you. If I can learn where they're coming from and see their grievances, I can talk to them. I could say, 'you know what? I see what you're saying.' I don't have to agree with it necessarily, but if I know where you're coming from, then we can have a conversation. It's a lot easier for me to say, okay, you have a really good point there. Same thing with red side. You know, some of them have good points. Some of them have bad points. But again, the one thing that should bind everybody is the Constitution and I think that we've strayed from that path.
One of your campaign priorities, I know, is health care. On your website, you state that, "caring for veterans is a clear federal responsibility," but civilian health care should be left to the states. This is kind of an interesting example of your party's position. Can you explain what that is based on constitutionally?
Sure. You know, you're supposed to provide for the general welfare and stuff like that. But now what I would suggest is to see where we can make improvements, to see where they drop the ball, see where we can find funding for it. You know, of course, now here's a big, big problem. Federal funding comes from taxpayers. So yes, these programs cost money. So in the long run, is it going to be overreach if we, you know, we tax somebody and make a new program? Is that going to overfund us? So I'd like to see where the waste is coming from and see where we can apply it. So if we have so much waste on the just say, the military or whatever committees or whatever programs we have, we could use that money to help fund the medical and stuff like that.
But you feel that constitutionally we're responsible for veterans health care, but not necessarily general population?
No. Of course, like our military budget might, we might be able to fit that in there with the health care and stuff like that. I'd have to see exactly where all the moneys — I'd have to do an audit of everything, to be honest with you. Not necessarily me, but we need to see where all the where the waste is, figure it out and do it fiscally responsible because we can't spend. When we spend more money than what we have, that gets us in a problem like what we are right now. We're spending like crazy. And when you spend more than what you make, that's an issue.
