Republican former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte defeated former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig on Tuesday to extend the GOP hold on the corner office in New Hampshire to a decade.
A former attorney general, Ayotte, 56, won by prosecuting a sharp attack against Craig’s stewardship for six years as mayor of the state’s largest city at the time it was struggling with homeless and an epidemic of opioid overdoses.
Ayotte also urged voters not to “Mass up” New Hampshire, a reference to Craig’s support from Maura Healey, the Democratic governor of the Bay State.
“When I got into this race, I said we were one election way from becoming Massachusetts, but guess what, not on my watch,” Ayotte declared at her victory party at the Tuscan Village in Salem.
With 91% of the vote counted, Ayotte led Craig, 53.3% to 44.7% for Craig. Libertarian party nominee Stephen Villee of Dover had 2%.
Craig called Ayotte to concede the race about 90 minutes after the polls closed.
Joyce Craig concedes to Kelly Ayotte in the race for governor at the Puritan in Manchester on Nov. 5, 2024
DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER
“While tonight isn’t the result we wanted, I am proud of our campaign and the issues we focused on,” Craig told her supporters at the Puritan Backroom in Manchester.
Craig urged residents to keep working with the new governor and Legislature to support public education, build more affordable housing and defend reproductive freedom in the state.
“You know I love this state, and I love Manchester and I want to thank all of you again and ask you to keep working to make sure we make New Hampshire a strong place,” Craig said.
Ayotte thanked outgoing GOP Gov. Chris Sununu for his strong support that she said was critical.
“There is an important guy in this room. I like to call him the 603 Guy and I can tell you we would not be here tonight if it weren’t for Governor Sununu,” Ayotte said.
Ayotte said Craig, 57, was very gracious to offer her encouragement.
“I am so appreciative of that; that is very much the New Hampshire way,” Ayotte said.
“Tonight, is a victory for New Hampshire, but it is also for a victory for an even brighter future for the greatest state in the nation.”
With 80% of the vote in her hometown counted, Craig narrowly trailed Ayotte in Manchester, 20,435 to 19,681.
In turn, it looked as if Craig was going to defeat Ayotte in her home city of Nashua.
But in community after community, Ayotte managed to do better than Sununu had done when he first won his office narrowly in 2016.
“She did better than I did in many communities and that was really encouraging,” Sununu said soon after the polls had closed.
This race for governor became the most expensive in state history and appeared likely to be the closest contest since the last time the office was vacant.
In 2016, voters had to decide between two executive councilors, Newfields Republican Chris Sununu against Concord Democrat Colin Van Ostern, in this race to replace Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan who ran for and narrowly won a U.S. Senate seat over Ayotte.
Sununu managed to edge Van Ostern by less than 16,000 or 1% of the vote.
National labor organizations plowed millions of dollars on Van Ostern’s behalf, giving the Democrat a huge financial advantage.
But Sununu won six of the state’s 10 counties that helped him win the first of four two-year terms.
Right out of the gate, Ayotte was the front-runner
Ayotte started this campaign as the prohibitive favorite, the only candidate who had been her party’s nominee twice and run statewide, to win the Senate seat in 2010 handily only to lose it to Hassan six years later.
Many political observers thought Craig’s political fortunes had taken a turn for the worse when voters in her hometown last November rejected her handpicked successor, Alderman and former state Sen. Kevin Cavanaugh, instead going with Republican Jay Ruais.
Early on, Craig’s Democratic primary opponent, Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington of Concord, spent significant money on the airwaves hammering Craig over her record in Manchester.
By the numbers, Craig argued that violent crime had gone down 40% during her six years as mayor and that she had set up a new, city-owned shelter for the homeless and a new “engagement center” that provided outreach services for those still living on the streets.
Greg Moore, regional director of the fiscally conservative Americans for Prosperity, said this had always been a losing battle for Craig to wage.
“Sometimes the image that gets baked in is more powerful than the actual reality,” Moore said. “Voters went with Ruais because their eyes were telling them this was a city on decline under Joyce Craig.”
Former New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch, a Bow Democrat, got his political start as a party activist in Manchester four decades ago and said Craig had been unfairly characterized in this race as a weak city executive.
Lynch was one of the first, prominent Democrats to sign on board for Craig’s campaign a year and a half ago.
“Joyce is a very caring individual but she’s also very tough and someone who is focused on getting results for working families,” Lynch said.
Ayotte defended her attack ads against Craig, calling Manchester a “proud city” and Craig had failed to lead it.
Craig said she, unlike Ayotte, ran a city and managed a $400 million state budget.
“I have the hands-on experience of getting things done,” Craig said.
Craig was able to keep the race competitive and come within the margin of error of defeating Ayotte by devoting most of her attention to her opponent’s voting record in the Senate on abortion rights.
During her one Senate term, Ayotte twice voted for a federal ban on abortion after 20 weeks with exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the mother.
Then after Ayotte lost her Senate seat, the Trump White House turned to her as a “sherpa” to shepherd through the U.S. Senate his first of three nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch.
All three picks voted to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that had guaranteed a federal abortion right up to the viability of the fetus, throwing it back to the states.
Ayotte had also voted four times against spending federal dollars in grants to Planned Parenthood of America.
These positions put her in conflict with Sununu who as a candidate for governor had supported abortion rights while saying he did favor a ban on late-term abortions.
In response to the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Republican-led Legislature passed and Sununu signed a ban on abortion after 24 weeks adding exceptions to save the life of the mother and if there is a fatal fetal anomaly.
The Union Leader first reported that Ayotte had served on the board and owned a few million dollars in stock of the Blackstone Group, the country’s largest landlord.
Craig charged that Ayotte had “profited” off the suffering of homeowners and renters in the country as Blackstone executives said the scarcity of housing units in the nation had translated to massive gains for the company.
Ayotte said Blackstone only owned a few buildings in the state and thus had nothing to do with the affordable housing crisis that existed in New Hampshire.
Both candidates vowed to fight housing crisis
Both candidates cited housing as one of the state’s top issues and vowed to work to reduce the red tape that developers face trying to get necessary state permits for residential housing projects.
Ayotte also said she would search out all state-owned property in New Hampshire and determine if the “highest and best use” for some of it would be to turn it over to a host community or to the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority to build more apartments and single-family homes.
Republicans believe Craig made an unforced error in this campaign by coming out in support of keeping in place the state’s 3% tax on interest and dividends that is slated to expire this July 1.
Ayotte called it an “income tax” since it’s a levy on the unearned income of those who own stocks or cash in on their retirement accounts.
Craig has never offered a specific proposal in this race but did say if elected she would seek to increase the no-tax exemption so that the retained tax did not hurt seniors or middle-income families.
The two took opposite sides on whether they would support legalization of marijuana for adults to use recreationally.
Ayotte, a former attorney general, said she was against the idea, citing studies that show increased use of marijuana by minors in other states lead to increased rates of anxiety and depression.
Craig said she would have signed legislation to make it legal if the revenue was used to increase state aid to public schools or to build more housing units.
