Fearful that far-right candidate Don Bolduc will win the GOP primary for the New Hampshire Senate nomination, Republicans have started to dump money into the last days before the primary to defeat his campaign, which is currently leading the polls, ABC News reports.
Bolduc goes far beyond traditional Trumpism into the whacky and conspiratorial: he has called New Hampshire’s Republican governor, Chris Sununu, a “Chinese Communist sympathizer.” He has advocated that the US put Americans military on the ground in Ukraine’s fight against Russian invaders. And he holds the more mainstream GOP position that the 2020 Presidential election was rigged.
A retired US Army brigadier general, Bolduc ran in the 2020 New Hampshire Republican Senate primary, losing to Trump-endorsed Corky Messner, who lost the general election to Democrat Jeanne Shaheen. In the 2022 primary race, however, he holds a double-digit lead in Tuesday’s primary, with a University of New Hampshire poll from the end of August showing him with a 21 percentage point lead over Republican state senate leader Chuck Morse, his closest opponent.
A new Super PAC, White Mountain PAC, has gotten more than $3.5 million in donations over the last couple of months to persuade Republican primary voters to vote for Morse–or at the very least, against Bolduc. The name White Mountain PAC comes from a group that operated for nearly a decade and a half, but went dormant after 2014; it’s unknown if the group’s current leadership is the same as the previous incarnation.
Democrats are using the Republican chaos and disarray to strengthen the lead of incumbent Maggie Hassan, who polls ahead of Bolduc–and all GOP nominees–and who will attract more independents and moderate Republicans if Bolduc wins the nomination.
“We’re seeing right now a break-glass moment from both sides. We’re seeing national Republicans put an urgent focus on promoting what they view as the most electable candidate in a general election. National Democrats have also come in trying to put their finger on the scale,” said Jeff Grappone, an unaffiliated GOP strategist with extensive experience in New Hampshire.
It’s another race in which Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot by having radical candidates in the race. Besides envigorating Democratic and independent pro-choice voters by cheering the unethically-stacked conservative Supreme Court’s decision overturning reproductive rights–with Justice Clarence Thomas promising that was only the start of the conservative campaign to undermine individual rights–the GOP has been pushing voters to their opponents by nominating candidates who embrace radical conspiracy theories and unpopular policies.
“We’ve heard several national strategists say that if Don Bolduc wins the nomination, then every dime that has been reserved in advertising will be pulled on September 14,” said Mike Dennehy, a New Hampshire GOP strategist advising Kevin Smith, another primary candidate with low poll numbers.