NH-02: Kuster retiring

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Safe D

[free my dawg]

Not Van Ostern. Please.

Wait, why? Just curious

Presumably because of his losses recently? Although I would argue his SoS loss in 2018 was more of an NHDP problem and less himself.

CVO will probably win the primary and will be a solid vote.

I'm not really concerned about these losses, fwiw. 2016 he ran against Sununu, a much stronger candidate than Ayotte or Trump. CVO ran a fine campaign. In 2018, he just wasn't the right candidate for SoS.

At the time he was trying to challenge a statewide institution who was entrenched, largely viewed as nonpartisan until participating in Trump's voter fraud investigation, and directly connected with the rest of NH's old guard. Normal logic would be to nominate some random nonpartisan figure or Democrat in the SoS office. NHDP logic would be to coronate a partisan figure using SoS to rejuvenate his career.

The late 2010s NHDP was baffling, especially considering its dominance on the congressional level while being FLDP-esque statewide. Thankful this got fixed in 2022 - part because their new centerpiece is Dobbs and that 2020 caught them asleep at the wheel.

[Bernie Derangement Syndrome Haver]

Soooo… this should be the last retirement of the cycle, right?

Probably, unless there's a surprise one in another late primary state like MA.

[Schiff for Senate]

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1773014911716614541

Eh, the impact of this is pretty overstated.

Packing a Dem seat / carving out a reliably red seat isn't really feasible in NH anyways, especially not with just two districts.

Unless the districts were fundamentally reconfigured, and drawn in a very ugly, county-splitting manner (which would run counter to several-decades-long NH redistricting tradition), the two districts wouldn't vote all that far apart, and on the whole the more conservative seat wouldn't be more than tilt R, maybe.

[Brother Jonathan]

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1773014911716614541

Eh, the impact of this is pretty overstated.

Packing a Dem seat / carving out a reliably red seat isn't really feasible in NH anyways, especially not with just two districts.

Unless the districts were fundamentally reconfigured, and drawn in a very ugly, county-splitting manner (which would run counter to several-decades-long NH redistricting tradition), the two districts wouldn't vote all that far apart, and on the whole the more conservative seat wouldn't be more than tilt R, maybe.

It is possible to draw a seat that votes GOP pretty consistently, but yeah it would be horrendously ugly and the margins would be nothing major (i.e. 50-48 McCain in 2008). I would think they might make some minor tweaks, but they probably still would have thought they had a shot at the 2nd.

[Brother Jonathan]

Word for NH Journal (a conservative publication) is that Burns will be entering the race. He's probably the favorite to be the nominee at this point.

https://nhjournal.com/republicans-burns-hamlen-expected-to-enter-cd2-race-this-week/

[free my dawg]

Both state Sen. Carrie Gendreau (R-Littleton) and businessman Vikram Mansharamani– who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2022 — are also being discussed as potential candidates.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Gendreau is a f**king lunatic whose most famous accomplishments are supporting a 2-week abortion ban and being triggered by a gay pride mural. NH-2 is Titanium D with her.

Whitley would be my candidate of choice on electoral grounds. I'm impressed by her beating Hodes in the 2020 primary, and she's still a very strong progressive as a whole.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Both state Sen. Carrie Gendreau (R-Littleton) and businessman Vikram Mansharamani– who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2022 — are also being discussed as potential candidates.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Gendreau is a f**king lunatic whose most famous accomplishments are supporting a 2-week abortion ban and being triggered by a gay pride mural. NH-2 is Titanium D with her.

Whitley would be my candidate of choice on electoral grounds. I'm impressed by her beating Hodes in 2020, and she's still a very strong progressive as a whole.

A two week ban? Why not just go full-on fetal personhood?

[free my dawg]

Both state Sen. Carrie Gendreau (R-Littleton) and businessman Vikram Mansharamani– who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2022 — are also being discussed as potential candidates.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Gendreau is a f**king lunatic whose most famous accomplishments are supporting a 2-week abortion ban and being triggered by a gay pride mural. NH-2 is Titanium D with her.

Whitley would be my candidate of choice on electoral grounds. I'm impressed by her beating Hodes in 2020, and she's still a very strong progressive as a whole.

A two week ban? Why not just go full-on fetal personhood?

That's the quiet part out loud. This is coming from someone who believes Pride flags are demonic.

[free my dawg]

https://twitter.com/JamesPindell/status/1775330682945900877?t=5Ya5nS_atsjTWI0lP7...

Maggie Goodlander is reportedly leaning towards running. Obviously her resume is absurdly qualified. The problem is that Maggie Goodlander is a carpetbagger.

While she was born and raised in Nashua, she actually lives in Portsmouth (NH-1) and only "moved back" in 2018. She has mostly been in DC, serving as a law clerk and as an aide for McCain and Lieberman.

I could see a state establishment vs. national establishment proxy battle like NH-1 in 2018. There are obviously a lot of variables. CVO is weaker than Pappas, while Goodlander doesn't have the veterans' lobby to push her. EMILY's List will still back her, but a main reason why Maura Sullivan was successful was that VoteVets and the rest of the vets' lobby was pushing her though. NH-2 is also much more hostile to carpetbagging than NH-1.

I think Goodlander is even weaker than Sullivan was. While Goodlander has actual NH connections, she doesn't even live in the district she's running in. CVO will win the primary handily.

[Brother Jonathan]

Gatsas retiring from the Executive Council has prompted Burns to run for that seat instead, which opens up the GOP field to the extent that Burns was clogging it (which, I mean, he's not exactly a titan but he did win the primary once I guess). At this point, I'm just waiting to see if Sweeney runs. He probably stands little chance in the general, but he is something of a rising star and if he runs Republicans will take it more seriously and it will be his first encounter with a lot of voters outside of Salem.

[wbrocks67]

and that's that

https://twitter.com/AdamSextonWMUR/status/1777646395517698389

[free my dawg]

Not much of a surprise. CVO was a high-ranking staff member for Kuster. That and his sudden preparation show he had prior knowledge.

It's very weird that the state party has such a boner for Van Ostern, given his 2016 loss. I'm shocked that they tried to coronate this guy twice, five years after he took a step back from electoral politics. He's a good progressive (backed Warren in 2020) but there are plenty of other good candidates. They didn't even roll out the red carpet like this for Pappas!

[Brother Jonathan]

https://twitter.com/AdamSextonWMUR/status/1779496583593119989

From a few days ago, but Becky Whitley is also in. CVO is still clearly favored, but Whitley is a serious candidate he won't be able to just brush off.