Democratic gubernatorial candidate Cinde Warmington has taken to social media to defend her past work as a lobbyist for Purdue Pharma, the maker of Oxycontin. The three-minute video, in which Warmington speaks directly to the camera seated on a bench in an empty park, is her latest effort to blunt a pervasive and bipartisan line of attack during her two bids for New Hampshire governor.
So far in this year’s campaign, Warmington’s opioid ties have been weaponized by her opponent, Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte, via television ads, yellow and black campaign signs, a billboard in Manchester, a banner towed behind a plane above Hampton Beach – even an inflatable rat outside the State House.
Warmington’s new video aims to turn what has so far been a political liability into a positive message — or at least to blunt her opponent’s message.
“By now you have all seen the attacks, and I think it’s important that I set the record straight,” Warmington says in the video, uploaded to YouTube on Friday. Warmington delves into her own family history in the video, saying that her father’s substance abuse forced her family into bankruptcy when she was a teenager, and that she chose to pursue a career as a healthcare attorney “to help people.”
Warmington goes on to describe how she came to work for Purdue Pharma in 2001 as a junior lawyer at the Shaheen and Gordon law firm.
“I was assigned a case by a partner to represent Purdue Pharma, and that’s exactly what I was doing,” Warmington says. “I was fighting for patients to get access to healthcare that their doctors thought that they needed.”
Warmington led Purdue’s failed bid to block state legislation that aimed to require patients try three other painkillers before their doctors could prescribe OxyContin. According to transcripts from State House hearings in 2002, Warmington called OxyContin a "miracle drug” “with very few side effects,” and bristled when a state senator suggested that the drug had a ”high potential for misuse or abuse.”
“To say OxyContin has been abused – it certainly has in the press,” Warmington said at the time.
In her video, Warmington repeated what she has said when criticized for her work as a Purdue lobbyist: she had no way of knowing how dangerous OxyContin was when she fought the legislation to make it harder to prescribe.
“What I did not know at the time was that Purdue Pharma was engaged in this massive criminal fraud, something that would only be exposed through years of litigation." Warmington said.
“If I had known in 2001 what we all later learned, I would never ever have done this work. It is totally contrary to who I am as a person.”
Warmington’s bottom line when it comes to Purdue Pharma is similar to what she said two years ago, when her lobbying work became an issue during her first run in the 2024 Democratic primary for governor. Warmington lost that race to former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig.
During that race, Craig’s campaign criticized Warmington’s Purdue Pharma lobbying, and her long-term legal work for PainCare, a notorious and now defunct chain of pain clinics.
At the time, Warmington pushed back on Craig’s criticism of her record on opioids by pointing out that Craig held a financial interest in her husband’s law firm, which has defended drug traffickers.
In her latest video, Warmington takes a similar approach with Ayotte, noting that as New Hampshire attorney general, Ayotte failed to join other states in suing Purdue Pharma, and that as a U.S. senator, Ayotte accepted campaign contributions from Purdue Pharma’s owners, the Sackler family.
“Talk about hypocrisy,” Warmington says in the video. “I think in context, everyone can see the attacks on me are politics as usual.”
Expect those politics to continue straight through to November. Polling shows this race remains competitive.
