Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) on Monday warned Granite Staters she could be defeated in New Hampshire’s Senate battleground race after losing momentum to Republican Gen. Don Bolduc.
Speaking at a campaign event in Derry, New Hampshire, Hassan told supporters Gen. Bolduc has a real chance of defeating her because “this has always been a close race.”
But the race has not always been close. In the last week, Gen. Bolduc has made a last minute charge. Hassan led the race by nine points just three weeks ago. Then the battleground race narrowed to seven points in mid-October. On Friday, Gen. Bolduc pulled up the rear into a virtual tie with Hassan, while Hassan dropped under 50 percent support, a key indicator of Gen. Bolduc’s momentum against the incumbent.
“It’s going to be a close race,” Hassan reiterated to supporters. “We are New Hampshire. We are a very purple state.”
On Tuesday, both candidates met prospective voters at the Chamber Collaborative of Greater Portsmouth, each answering questions separately asked by attendees.
Gen. Bolduc hammered Hassan for voting with President Joe Biden 100 percent of the time. “She’s failed. Six years of failure. Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail,” he said. “I’ll go to Washington, D.C., to be your United States senator and work on the real problems that Americans and Granite Staters are having right now.”
When he was asked about unleashing American energy, Bolduc told the room that too much American energy is being sent abroad when energy prices have been spiking under Democrat rule.
“Where’s that natural gas going? It’s going overseas and it shouldn’t be going overseas. It should be staying right here,” he said. “We should be producing the amount that we need to keep prices down here in this country and export to make money.”
Bolduc said American energy independence can return under Republican leadership without being irresponsible towards the nation’s ecosystem.
“I get it, people are afraid about the environment. So am I. I’m a Granite Stater, for crying out loud,” he said. “I love this environment, I love our clean water, I love our communities and I want that for our grandchildren. We can be responsible and still provide energy to Americans.”
Hassan, meanwhile, was quick to pivot from the issue of America’s energy crisis–which fueled inflation–to abortion. “You know, as I started to talk with women about inflation, they all changed the subject to abortion,” she claimed, “for some people it is, you know, a concern about whether they’re gonna be able to pay rent and put food on the table. But they also said to me, but if my fundamental rights are gone, that’s much harder to get back.”
Hassan’s anecdotal story contradicts data. Polling shows the number one issue among Granite Staters is inflation. Abortion is sixth nationally. Additionally, polling shows women voters have shifted their support behind Republicans in large part due to the record-high inflation and specifically soaring costs at the grocery store. According to Pew Research Center analysis, 80 percent of mothers say they are the primary grocery shopper for the household.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.