House parties, town hall meetings, debates: This year’s Democratic primary in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District has seen its share of traditional campaigning. But as this tight race nears its end, its most telling characteristic might be the so-called “red boxes” featured on the websites of two of the candidates, Maura Sullivan and Stefany Shaheen.
“Red boxes” are a relatively new political phenomenon, where candidates post pre-packaged messages and instructions on their website for outside political advocacy groups to use in campaign advertising. While federal law prohibits candidates and PACs from coordinating on political ads, red-boxing allows candidates to essentially hand outside PACs the ingredients needed to produce their desired media message.
Both Sullivan and Shaheen’s red boxes include downloadable photos (and, in Sullivan’s case, several minutes of slow motion video of the candidate) and memos that instruct outside PACs exactly how to promote the candidate — and attack their opponent.
“Maura Sullivan isn’t being honest with voters,” Shaheen’s red box media info states. “When voters get the facts about outside special interests funding Maura Sullivan’s campaign, they know that’s who she works for, not New Hampshire.”
“Stefany Shaheen is more of the same, bought and paid for by DC lobbyists,” reads the red box page on Sullivan’s campaign site.
The sharp tone — and the fixation on how each candidate is raising money — has come to define the waning days of this bitter primary, with each candidate relying on outside money to attack the other . . . for relying on outside money.
Big spending for one race
By election day, overall spending in this race — by Shaheen, Sullivan, and the outside groups supporting and opposing them — is likely to top $12 million, making it the most costly congressional primary in state history
Both candidates have raised substantial sums themselves: Sullivan $3.6 million, Shaheen $2.4 million.
But outside groups are also spending big.
Six super PACs have now plowed more than $5 million into the race to either boost Shaheen or attack Sullivan.:
- More than $2 million has come from Article One PAC, which bills itself as supporting candidates committed to exercising oversight over the executive branch.
- Another $2 million to boost Shaheen is coming from The New Leadership PAC, which says it supports “Democrats that fight, Democrats that deliver.”
- A super PAC run by the League of Conservation Voters has so far plowed $600,000 into the race on Shaheen’s behalf.
No Kings PAC, a newer political entity aimed at checking the power of President Donald Trump, ponied up another $500,000 to help Shaheen.
PAC and super PACs are also weighing in on Sullivan’s behalf.:
- VoteVets, which backs former military members, has now spent $2 million in the race.
- A separate veterans-focused group, the Servant Leader PAC, has spent $1 million for Sullivan.
An increasingly bitter tone
The tenor of each campaign’s closing messages — those underwritten by outside PACs, but also those coming from the respective campaigns themselves — are playing out across media platforms, showing up in voters’ mailboxes, and crossing the candidates’ lips with increasing intensity as primary day approaches.
And the most friction may be over campaign donations and outside support itself.
“Our opponent, Maura Sullivan, has raised more than 90% of the money that supports her campaign from outside of New Hampshire,” Shaheen said during a candidate debate on WMUR Thursday.
The special interests Shaheen accused of weighing in on Sullivan’s behalf ranged from AIPAC supporters to Jeff Bezos.
“My opponent is just choosing to lie about me,” Sullivan shot back. “When you don’t come from a political family, you have to work three times as hard,” she said, a reference to Shaheen's mother, U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.
Sullivan added that her approach to courting out-of-state financial support was to target donors who had previously given to the state’s current congressional delegation: “Let me be clear: I am incredibly proud to have the support of people who have supported our senators and see leadership in me.”
The pitched nature of Sullivan and Shaheen’s battle over campaign donations — particularly when both of their campaigns are using red boxes to facilitate support from dark money groups who don’t disclose their funding sources — is telling. Part of the rancor may be because they are frontrunning candidates in a district that Democrats have now held for four straight terms. But there is also the fact that little separates Shaheen and Sullivan on the issues, be it healthcare, the economy, or whether they would favor making Washington DC and Puerto Rico states (they do), or would back fresh impeachment proceedings against Trump (they would).
In the absence of substantial policy differences, campaign donations — who made them, and where donors may live — may be the most potent shorthand candidates like Shaheen and Sullivan have to appeal to their party’s base.
It’s a dynamic that’s largely sidelined the other candidates in this primary: Hampton select board member Carleigh Beriont, former Pentagon lawyer Christian Urrutia, and non-profit administrator Sarah Chadzynski.
According to the polls, Beriont is the only candidate other than Sullivan and Shaheen to have polled outside single digits over the course of the campaign. And while Beriont has chosen to reject some fundamental tools of modern campaigning, like the use of social media, her campaign website includes a red box.
“Voters need to learn about Carleigh’s background and accomplishments, in this order of importance,” the red box memo instructs readers, before listing messaging points and offering links to download photos and videos of the candidate.
