Gov. Kelly Ayotte has won another term in office, providing a rare bright spot for Republicans on an Election Day that featured big wins for Democrats up and down the ballot in New Hampshire.
Vote counting in the governor’s race stretched deep into the night Tuesday. Shortly before midnight, Ayotte addressed a roomful of supporters at Tuscan Village in Salem and urged them to be patient — and hopeful — as returns showed her with a narrow lead over Democrat Cinde Warmington.
“We are going to wait for every single vote to be counted tonight, but I want you to know that we are very very optimistic about the result and where things stand,” Ayotte said. “But I feel very strongly that it’s important we have every vote come in before we make a final conclusion here.”
An hour later, that conclusion came as the Associated Press called the race in Ayotte’s favor. With 84% of the vote counted at 1am Wednesday, Ayotte led Warmington 51% to 47%.
A first term shaped by law enforcement background
Ayotte’s first two years in office were marked by a focus on public safety issues, including overhauling the state’s bail law and pushing for stricter penalties related to driving while intoxicated.
Ayotte, who spent five years as New Hampshire’s attorney general, tapped former members of law enforcement for top posts in her administration, and threatened to veto the state budget unless it restored the pensions of law enforcement retirees who saw their benefits cut more than a decade ago. She signed bills barring New Hampshire cities and towns from adopting so-called sanctuary policies for undocumented immigrants and to require local police departments to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
At the same time, Ayotte worked to keep her distance from the Trump administration and position herself as a governor committed to traditional state Republicans priorities of keeping taxes low and making New Hampshire hospitable to out-of-state visitors.
Ayotte has also presided over sweeping changes to state education policy. She backed the expansion of the state’s voucher-like Education Freedom Accounts, and supports overturning a landmark state Supreme Court ruling on the Legislature's obligation to provide "adequate" funding for public education.
Campaigning on housing and affordability
On the campaign trail, Ayotte said repeatedly that she saw housing as the state’s top economic issue, given the high costs of single-family homes and rentals, driven in part by a shortage of housing stock. In her pitch for reelection, Ayotte pointed to her record of signing legislation to ease zoning restrictions and encourage new home construction, and her directive to state departments to speed up housing permit processing.
Ayotte pitched herself as a problem solver of other affordable living challenges in the state, including the rising costs of childcare. Ayotte signed a bill that encourages businesses to include childcare on their premises with a tax credit. Speaking to NHPR, Ayotte also touted the state’s expansion of eligibility for the Childcare Scholarship Fund, which helps families with childcare costs.
“I'm going to continue to prioritize those scholarships because I've met so many families that are using them,” Ayotte said of her plans for the state’s next budget cycle.
Warmington, meanwhile, hammered Ayotte over cost of living issues, arguing that people in New Hampshire are "getting screwed and Kelly Ayotte is holding the screwdriver."
“This economy is simply and fundamentally broken, and we need to fix it," Warmington said at a candidate forum last month. "And that means investing in housing and in child care, and making sure we're protecting our public schools and our public education. We have a real choice in this election. We can't afford two more years of the Kelly Ayotte-Trump agenda.”
Warmington also argued that state decisions on education and health care under Ayotte have shifted costs to municipalities and local taxpayers. When questioned about Granite Staters struggling with high property taxes at the same forum, Ayotte put her support behind voters deciding for themselves whether they would cap school tax increases. She also vowed to protect the “New Hampshire Advantage” by rejecting any proposed income or sales tax, which she argued her opponent Warmington would implement, although Warmington insisted that would not be the case.
A long to-do list waits in second term
At Ayotte’s election night party, Kyle Simpson, whose young son died in an accident with a distracted driver, said the governor had appointed him to the state's traffic safety commission. He said he was impressed with the job she did running the state in her first term.
“She speaks her mind and she definitely goes out there and fights for what she says she believes in,” Simpson said.
Ayotte enters her second term with a series of challenges. First and foremost may be the economy. The state budget will also be an early priority; governors typically spend the early weeks of their administration working to establish clear spending priorities that can come to define their working relationship with lawmakers. One potential rough patch in the next two years may include funding for public higher education, which has been a point of friction between Ayotte and top lawmakers in her own party.
She also has key administrative decisions to make. One is appointing a new chief justice of the state’s supreme court. Former Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald stepped down in September amid an ethics investigation. Other high court members may be under scrutiny for their roles in covering up an unusual personnel move. Other looming management challenges include turmoil at the Sununu Youth Services Center, the state's scandal-plagued youth detention facility.
Ayotte’s ability to achieve sweeping changes in her second term will likely be more limited than in her first. Though final results in races for state Senate, House and Executive Council remained unclear early Wednesday morning, Democrats appear poised to gain seats in all three bodies — perhaps even majorities. That will severely curtail Ayotte’s ability to achieve legislative priorities or appoint nominees who can’t win Democratic support.
