Tag: Maggie Hassan

The Story: Chris Sununu, who is now serving his third term as the Governor of New Hampshire, announced last week that he will not run...

How could these races change the Democratic Party? Both Molly Kelly and Chris Pappas have been loyal to Democratic Party’s power structure, by serving party leaders, winning election to lower office and adopting the electoral model set by Jeanne Shaheen. That is part of it, and while neither Democrat running for governor backs a new broad-based tax, the pledge kind of does define their race. In Molly Kelly you have someone who never took it before running for governor, and in Steve Marchand you have someone who makes much of not taking it because he says a cultural change is needed, that Democrats need to “let it rip.” If there is anything New Hampshire’s Democratic governor’s haven’t done - we are talking about Jeanne Shaheen, John Lynch, Maggie Hassan - it's "let it rip." So this race could be a referendum on the political model that party leaders believe have served Democrats for years? That’s one way to see it What about the other big primary? If it were her approach, it probably would not work, because she has few ties to the state. John Lynch, who’s largely abandoned party politics since leaving the governor’s office, out there working things for Pappas. And another thing is that since neither Kelly’s nor Pappas' campaigns have spent money on tracking polls, they are kind of flying blind, without a clear sense of how voters feel about these races. for years in New Hampshire.