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Massachusetts politicians campaign in New Hampshire with the balance of power at stake

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U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, Democratic candidate running for re-election in New Hampshire, and Don Bolduc, the Republican challenger. (AP Photo)
U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, Democratic candidate running for re-election in New Hampshire, and Don Bolduc, the Republican challenger. (AP Photo)

Much of the attention leading up to the midterm elections has focused on Senate races in swing states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. But in recent weeks, U.S. Senate and House races in New Hampshire have narrowed. And with just hours to go until Election Day, they are very much in play.

"I've never felt like there is a bigger difference between winning and losing an election than the election that's going to be held on Nov. 8," said U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas, the Democrat who represents New Hampshire's first congressional district in the eastern half of the state.

Pappas had been leading his rival, 25-year-old Karoline Leavitt, a hard-right, conservative Republican who served in Donald Trump's White House. But at least one recent poll shows Leavitt pulling ahead.

At a get-out-the vote rally on Saturday in Manchester, Pappas said with election deniers doubling down on the "big lie" — the falsehoods pushed by Trump that the 2020 election was stolen — the future of "democracy is at stake."

All 21 House members from New England are Democrats. The only Republican senator is Susan Collins of Maine, a moderate who supports abortion rights and declined to endorse Trump in 2020. But polling analysis by the Cook Political Report suggests Republicans have a chance to win a number of House races in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Maine.

U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, another New Hampshire Democrat at the Manchester rally, also faces a tight race to hold on to her seat, which she narrowly won in 2016 by just over 1,000 votes.

"My opponent, Don Bolduc, is the most extreme nominee for the United States Senate that New Hampshire has seen in modern history," she said.

Don Bolduc, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, speaking in Peterborough, New Hampshire. (Anthony Brooks/WBUR)
Don Bolduc, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, speaking in Peterborough, New Hampshire. (Anthony Brooks/WBUR)

With Republicans feeling the wind at their backs, a Hassan loss could be one of the keys for the GOP to take control of the Senate.

During the primary, Bolduc falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election was stolen, then reversed his position after he won. He has called New Hampshire's popular Republican Gov. Chris Sununu "a Chinese Communist sympathizer." At the rally, Hassan called Bolduc too extreme and said, "he's certainly not listening to women in New Hampshire," noting that Bolduc applauded the Supreme Court's decision striking down Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed federal abortion rights for the past 50 years.

"A national abortion ban is on the ballot, folks," she said.

To help make their case over the weekend, New Hampshire Democrats recruited their party neighbors from Massachusetts. Congresswoman and Assistant House Speaker Katherine Clark showed up at the rally in Manchester. So did U.S. Secretary of Labor and former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, who called this election a contest between "the rhetoric of hate versus the reality of helping working people."

Midterm elections are typically hard on the party that holds the White House, and this year is expected to be no exception. With President Biden's approval ratings low and voters worried about the economy, political forecasters say Democrats stand to lose the U.S. House and possibly the Senate. But at the rally, Walsh argued Democrats have had a lot of success in Washington, passing a succession of legislation, including a bill on infrastructure spending, a climate bill, a plan to bring down prescription drug prices, and a bill to promote domestic production of computer chips.

"The legislation that was passed has an impact on everyday Americans," Walsh said.

Sen. Maggie Hassan addresses supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire, with Rep. Chris Pappas of New Hampshire, Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, and U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh. (Anthony Brooks/WBUR)
Sen. Maggie Hassan addresses supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire, with Rep. Chris Pappas of New Hampshire, Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, and U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh. (Anthony Brooks/WBUR)

Democrats in New Hampshire are counting on voters like Carol Keeffe Hendries, a retired schoolteacher, who says she's voting for Hassan because of her experience and support of policies that help families, such as funding for child care and education.

"I just believe she is for all people," Hendries said.

Bolduc has been holding dozens of campaign events across the state and pushing back on a number of Hassan's claims — including that he's too extreme.

"I'm an extremist in one area: common sense," he said to applause at a stop in Peterborough over the weekend.

Bolduc puts the economy — including high inflation and gas prices — at the center of his pitch.

"Granite-Staters are paying $7,600 more today out of their pocket for everyday things than they were two years ago," he said. "We have parents all over this state making choices between heating and eating."

Bolduc, a retired Army brigadier general with a ramrod straight posture, says Hassan and fellow Democrats are to blame for runaway spending, rising crime and a series of conservative social grievances. Among them, the push for transgender rights for kids, which he called an assault on parental rights.

"They're old enough to decide what sex they are?" he asked the crowd. "Unbelievable. It just doesn't make any sense to me."

Rita Mattson, a Republican who's running for the New Hampshire state Legislature, agrees with Bolduc's case against Hassan and the Democrats.

"The Democrats want to take away our guns. The want to mask us. They want to force [us] into taking mandatory vaccines," Mattson said. "Being forced into doing things — that's taking away our rights."

Polls suggest this race is now on a knife's edge. If Bolduc wins, Democrats will face a reckoning over a controversial tactic: they were so certain that Bolduc was too extreme to be elected that they spent millions of dollars to help defeat his primary opponent, the more moderate state Senate President Chuck Morse. So now Hassan is fighting for her political life against a candidate her own party helped — with control of the U.S. Senate at stake.

This segment aired on November 7, 2022.

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Anthony Brooks Senior Political Reporter
Anthony Brooks is WBUR's senior political reporter.

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