After tough primary battles, Ayotte and Craig now face each other in race for governor

Kelly Ayotte speaks to supporters at the Bonfire Country Bar in Manchester after she was declared the winner in the Republican primary for governor on Tuesday, Sept. 10. (Will Steinfeld | For the New Hampshire Bulletin)

Former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte and former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig will face off in November as the respective Republican and Democratic nominees for New Hampshire governor after a pair of bruising party primaries.

Ayotte, a Republican who served in the Senate from 2011 to 2017 and as attorney general from 2004 to 2009, bested her opponent, Chuck Morse, the former Senate president, with 65 percent of the vote at press time.

Craig, the Manchester mayor from 2018 to 2024, defeated Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington, of Concord, 48 percent to 42 percent, with 84 percent of the votes counted. Newmarket businessman Jonathan Kiper, an outsider with little establishment backing, trailed behind with about 10 percent of the vote .

The Associated Press called Ayotte as the winner shortly after 8 p.m. and Craig just before 10 . Both are seeking to follow Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who is stepping down after four terms.

The primary results clear the way for a bare-knuckled general election campaign between the two candidates, as Craig plays the part of seasoned city executive and Ayotte the role of conservative prosecutor.

The Ayotte-Morse divide

Morse and Ayotte appeared to emerge from opposite corners of the Republican Party.

With an endorsement from Sununu and a clear fundraising advantage over Morse, Ayotte had been seen as a front-runner in the primary. She ran a buoyant campaign that at times appeared to follow Sununu’s optimistic political brand.

But Ayotte also infused her candidacy with dire warnings that Democrats would attempt to turn the Granite State into Massachusetts by pursuing similar liberal policies. She sought to capitalize on Sununu’s positive approval ratings by proposing to continue his economic policies by keeping taxes low and enticing more business. And she also made illegal immigration and crime a persistent focus, earning her endorsements from the New Hampshire Police Association and the New Hampshire Troopers Association, among other law enforcement groups.

Morse, for his part, had sought to claim the title of the true conservative in the race, pointing to his record as Senate president in which he oversaw multiple rounds of tax cuts, the creation of the education freedom accounts program, and the state’s 24-week abortion ban enacted in 2021.

He positioned his campaign to Ayotte’s right, and frequently attacked her for helping craft a 2013 bipartisan immigration reform deal as a U.S. senator, which Morse likened to amnesty. And he endorsed former President Donald Trump’s re-election early on and drew contrasts to Ayotte, who wavered on her support for Trump in 2016 and later lost her re-election to U.S. Senate.

Both candidates had lost a statewide election to U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan – Ayotte in 2016 when then-Gov. Hassan narrowly ousted her, and Morse in 2022 when he won the Republican nomination but failed to unseat Hassan in her re-election attempt.

But this time around, Morse’s conservative message was held back by lower name recognition and a muted delivery style that saw him struggle to maintain the spotlight.

Morse and Ayotte had few major differences around specific state policies. Both said they would maintain a business-friendly environment in the state by keeping the current business tax levels and seeing through the elimination of the interest and dividends tax, which is due to be phased out in 2025. Both said they would use additional state revenues to attempt to reduce property taxes to cities and towns. Both said they would favor making education freedom accounts universal. Both said they would devote additional funding to police resources to apprehend undocumented people in the state, and would not allow municipalities to become sanctuary cities.

And both endorsed a bill that arrived at Sununu’s desk this week that would require a photo ID to vote without exceptions, and would require first-time New Hampshire voters to produce citizenship documents such as a passport or birth certificate in order to register to vote.

But while they took similar positions, they each sought to portray different images on the campaign trail. Ayotte used a string of appearances at local stores and restaurants – including one “Super 603” tour with Sununu shortly after his endorsement – to paint the portrait of a business champion who would continue Sununu’s legacy and move forward. Morse deployed campaign stops and stump speeches to tout what the state had already done under his Senate presidency. “I’ve already done it,” he often proclaimed.

At her victory party in Manchester’s Bonfire Country Bar – blocks away from Craig’s victory party – aides to Sununu, Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais, House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, and a slew of Republican lawmakers celebrated with shouts and pints of beer.

Over the din, Ayotte said she hopes to receive the support of voters for Morse.

“I received a very gracious call from him,” she told the Bulletin. “He’s pledged his support for me. He understands how important it is that we unify as a party.”

Asked how to win over independents in the middle who might split their tickets, Ayotte argued her vision would appeal across the state. “It really includes four things,” she said. “It’s protect our New Hampshire tax advantage and our economic advantage. It’s fix our housing crisis. It’s strengthen our mental health system. And finally, it’s keep our community safe.”

Earlier in the evening, an emotional Morse addressed a room of family and close supporters at the Atkinson Country Club.

“Well, the fact is, we’re not going to win this one,” he said tearfully. He thanked his wife, his family, and his supporters. And he said after attending the New Hampshire Republicans’ planned unity breakfast on Thursday morning, he planned to take a break from public view.

But he said he would put his party above his personal disappointment and get behind Ayotte. “That’s what you have to do in politics,” Morse said. “There’s nothing more important than November.”

A challenging primary for Craig

Ayotte will face Joyce Craig, the former mayor of Manchester as the Democratic nominee in the general election. Ayotte has already waged numerous attacks on Craig, criticizing her position as governor during a high number of drug overdoses and claiming Craig oversaw a rise in crime and homelessness in the city.

Craig, meanwhile, has criticized Ayotte’s record on reproductive rights and pointed to her votes in the U.S. Senate attempting to defund Planned Parenthood and remove the requirement for insurers to cover birth control. Ayotte has said she does not support changing New Hampshire’s current abortion laws.

Like Morse and Ayotte, Craig and Warmington had little daylight between their policy positions. The two Democrats both supported repealing the education freedom accounts program, pursuing expanded forms of clean energy production, passing state protections for reproductive rights, and devoting money to housing production.

Without policy differences, the two campaigns compensated with brass-knuckled attacks on each others’ personal records, launching the kinds of broadsides not often seen in Democratic primaries in New Hampshire.

In one television ad, Warmington assailed Craig’s leadership of Manchester, which she said had been riddled with concerns around homelessness and overdoses, mirroring the same attacks waged against Craig as Republicans.

Craig, meanwhile, approved of ads reminding voters of Warmington’s past legal and lobbying work for Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin whose business practices are now regarded as a key driver of the opioid crisis.

The intraparty attacks exposed political vulnerabilities for both candidates that raised risks of weakening them in the general election. Where Morse’s criticisms of Ayotte had been framed around the perception that she was not conservative enough for Republicans, Craig’s and Warmington’s attacks against each other were broad enough to potentially stick in the minds of independent voters.

Now, Craig will need to combat those perceptions, while also taking on Ayotte’s vision for the state and presenting herself as a needed contrast to Sununu.

In a crowded room of supporters at the Rex Theatre in Manchester, with her family standing behind her, Craig accepted the Democratic nomination and began her campaign against Ayotte in earnest, calling her the “most extreme anti-choice candidate for governor in our state’s history.”

“The truth is, Kelly’s attacking our city and my record because she can’t defend her votes as a U.S. senator and her career as a shadow lobbyist for corporate special interests,” Craig said.

Former four-term Democratic Gov. John Lynch, who introduced Craig to the stage, said she was the only candidate in the race with executive experience.

“I do believe that being mayor of Manchester is a more difficult job than being governor of the state of New Hampshire,” he said.

Despite a tense final sprint in the primary, Warmington conceded the race to Craig and vowed to do everything she could to help her win in November.

“We did not get the results that we wanted tonight,” she said from Phenix Hall in Concord. “But I am so proud of the campaign we ran.”

Warmington touted the stances she took in support of public education, housing affordability, reproductive freedom, and waste management, and said she would continue campaigning against Ayotte.

“While Joyce and I had our disagreements during this campaign, we both love this state, and we both know we have to stop Kelly Ayotte from becoming our governor,” Warmington said.

(Claire Sullivan contributed to this report.)