Ahead of the state primary on Sept. 8, NHPR is speaking with the top candidates in the race for U.S. Senate.
It’s an open primary for both sides of the ballot, following Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s announcement that she would not seek reelection after three terms.
Read on for NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Barnett’s interview with Democrat Karishma Manzur. Manzur lives in Exeter, serves as a volunteer with progressive organizations and has a background in medical science.
Manzur spoke about the cost of living, including health care and affordable housing, the war in Iran, and her critique of party politics. She said candidates and elected leaders should answer to voters, not donors.
What questions do you have about this year's elections? Let us know at voices@nhpr.org, and we could help you get the answers.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Transcript
So, you're a first-time candidate running against Chris Pappas, a candidate with a lot of political experience and some deep ties to the Democratic establishment. What are the problems within your own party, the Democratic Party, that you're hoping to expose or address with your candidacy?
So first of all, it's an open seat. So if anything, he's running against me. The next part is, the establishment is really coming down on us. The New Hampshire Democratic Party, the whole slate of AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee]-funded senators and representatives are stumping for Chris Pappas all over the state for the last year. And now the DNC [Democratic National Committee] is getting involved, even. So, it's really terrible.
I think the New Hampshire Democratic Party and the DNC have not learned from the 2016 and the 2024 loss to Donald Trump. They lost because they were not answering to the voters. They were answering to their donors. And that is a problem that disenfranchises young people [and] independents. People want true democracy. They want to have a free and fair primary election, a free and fair general election, and have access to the information about the candidates so they can make informed choices.
But unfortunately, the donors from both parties, the Democratic establishment, as well as the Republican establishment, only want to support their establishment candidates. And that has a real impact on our democracy.
We've heard from many voters in New Hampshire that the cost of living is a major concern. You support Medicare for All to lower health care costs, but what other policies will you support or propose in the Senate to lower everyday costs for everyday people?
Across the state, people are suffering from a housing crisis, a childcare crisis, a health care crisis. And those problems are getting worse year after year because too many of our lawmakers are answering to their donors and are not serving the people of this state or across the country. That is a major problem. We need a Congress that works for the people.
So how are we going to address the housing crisis? We need to build affordable homes. At the moment, we're short about 40,000 units right here in New Hampshire. If we don't address the crisis by 2040, we're going to be 90,000 units short. So the federal government has to properly fund Housing and Urban Development, HUD. This is a federal agency that is tasked with making sure that there is enough affordable housing, workforce housing, Section 8 housing available to people. So this is one step that the federal government has to make.
But we cannot build ourselves out of the current crisis here in New Hampshire, because private equity is purchasing so many of the homes, that we need to actually stop private equity also. We don't want Wall Street to own single-family homes. Single-family homes are for single families.
So we have to both build from the federal government, as well as working with the state government and local government, but we also have to stop private equity. In places like the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, about 40% of the homes are either owned by private equity or are short term rentals, or are second homes. That means those homes are not being used year round, while thousands of people here in New Hampshire are facing severe housing crises. And that is something we need to fix. And I will work to do that as the next senator from New Hampshire.
The United States has been at war with Iran since the end of February. Congress has been largely absent from any oversight or decision making in the conflict. What role should Senate Democrats play in oversight of the Iraq war, especially if they remain in the minority in the Senate?
So that specific topic brings up so much of what's not working for our government. First of all, the fact that Donald Trump went into war with Iran, or attacked Iran is a better way to say it, based on faulty intelligence that came from Benjamin Netanyahu. This is unconscionable.
Our country is a sovereign nation. We should have a foreign policy based on national interest and national security. Our intelligence agencies were very clear that Iran was not an imminent threat, that they did not have a nuclear weapon, and yet Donald Trump still went ahead and attacked Iran.
So before I go a little bit more…but do you remember February 28th is when Donald Trump attacked Iran? Before that, the headlines all across the country were full of the Epstein files. Have you noticed that since we attacked Iran, it's no longer — we're not talking about the Epstein files anymore. So could it have been a motivation? Most likely. And that is really sad. That to cover up pedophilia or to protect people who actually have engaged in violence against children, that we are in a war that's not based on our national interest or security.
Now, let's bring up — you said the U.S. is in a war with Iran. It's actually the U.S. and Israel that's in a war with Iran. And that is something we need to clarify and be very conscientious of. Our foreign policy, again, should be based on national interest and in security, not what Benjamin Netanyahu is dictating. He has too much influence on our White House. He has too much influence on our Congress and on our foreign policy.
We have to stop this war immediately. We have to pull our troops out of that, out of harm's way. We have already spent over $200 billion in this war. (Editor’s note: In July, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth estimated the war has cost the United States $37.5 billion so far. Other estimates put the cost much higher.) For what? Did it help us with our housing, our child care crisis? Our health care crisis? Nothing. It is of no benefit to the people of the United States or people in New Hampshire. We must stop these endless wars that have been going on around the Middle East for over 25 years now.
And what role would Senate Democrats play in making that happen?
So that is the embarrassing part. Even though Chuck Schumer might be in the minority, he still has a lot of clout that he can use. But that's when you start to follow the money. Chuck Schumer's biggest donor is AIPAC, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is also the biggest donor for Donald Trump. (Editor’s note: Independent campaign finance analysts calculate that while Schumer is one of the Senate’s biggest beneficiaries of spending by AIPAC and other pro-Israel donors in recent years, the group is not his biggest donor. Trump has benefited from spending by pro-Israel donors and lobbying groups, but AIPAC is not his biggest donor.)
So let's ask ourselves, are the Democratic establishment really in opposition? Or are they controlled opposition that are telling us what we want to hear on the ground, but behind the scenes, they're answering to the same donor class. Because if you look at what Hakeem Jeffries or Chuck Schumer or the leadership of the DNC are doing, they're just playing along with Donald Trump, and they're not protecting us or protecting the world from Donald Trump's absolutely insane attacks on our democracy and on our foreign policy.
And you've said you support policies that eliminate U.S. military funding for Israel, citing human rights violations in Palestine. Given the long standing diplomatic alliance between the U.S. and Israel, what would a healthy U.S.-Israel relationship look like to you moving forward?
Federal laws tell us that any foreign entity — doesn't matter if it's Israel or Saudi Arabia or any country — that is violating human rights should not receive our weapons. It's just a federal law. So in compliance with our federal law, Israel, because it is violating human rights in Gaza and Lebanon, should not receive our weapons. But that also goes for Saudi Arabia, that they violated human rights by attacking Yemen. They should not have received any kind of weapons from us. Whether we are donating it to any of these countries or we're selling it to any of these countries, our Congress and our White House should adhere to federal laws, and that's what they're failing to do.
