Ugliest Democratic primary of the cycle is tearing New Hampshire apart

A relatively sleepy six-month Democratic primary season is closing out with an intensely acrimonious race pitting a local New Hampshire power broker against a D.C. attorney with close ties to the Biden White House.

And an issue that has forcefully united Democrats since the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022 is now fueling internal conflict: abortion rights.

The race, already contentious, turned brutally ugly over the summer when one prominent candidate, Colin Van Ostern, launched an ad claiming his opponent, Maggie Goodlander, was not committed enough to abortion rights, having donated money to “pro-life Republicans.” Delivering that message on Van Ostern’s behalf was his one-time boss, Rep. Ann McLane Kuster , a respected centrist who is retiring from Congress.

The backlash was ferocious, immediate and personal: Goodlander allies denounced the attack, citing her own experience with a traumatic late miscarriage. Goodlander said her donations had nothing to do with reproductive rights; one was to a former Republican who supported impeaching then-President Donald Trump and the other to a former classmate.

Kuster had initially sought to quietly hand off her blue-leaning seat to Van Ostern, her former campaign manager. But Goodlander, an attorney who has worked in the Biden administration, has surged in the final weeks and is slightly favored in Tuesday’s primary.

Goodlander, too, has confronted claims of foul play: Her allies were the first to go negative on TV. And some Van Ostern supporters have privately complained that Goodlander has benefited from the support of her husband, Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser. Sullivan has discussed his wife’s candidacy in conversations with fellow Democrats, according to two people familiar with the interactions.

The result is an angry Democrat-on-Democrat battle less than two months before Election Day, at a time when the party insists it has never been more unified in the fight for 2024 — and when that unity is key to its attempt to take back control of Congress.

It’s become so intense that Kuster resigned from a pro-women’s group she co-founded after the group endorsed Goodlander. And behind the scenes, Kuster’s dogged promotion of Van Ostern has riled some members of the centrist New Democrat Coalition she leads, who are upset that a chunk of the group’s aligned super PAC's political resources have gone toward attacking Goodlander when there are more competitive seats to defend in November.

“Maggie is not only an exceptionally qualified candidate, but she's also the type of leader that New Dems should be welcoming into our ranks,” said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a New Democrat member who is backing Goodlander. “We should be fighting Republicans and supporting candidates in frontline races, not attacking the strongest Democrats who are most aligned with our values in primaries.”

Kuster argued that she is trying to protect the swing seat she has held for 12 years, where only 30 percent of voters are registered Democrats. Van Ostern, she insists, is the right person to keep the seat in Democratic hands.

“I probably have a better sense than Seth Moulton about what it’s going to take to win in November,” Kuster said.

The ad that shook the race

Tension was already mounting before Kuster’s ad.

Van Ostern’s supporters say the turning point was an ad from VoteVets, a group backing Goodlander , which labeled him as a “perennial candidate” and highlighted fines against his venture capital firm in 2022 for misleading investors. Goodlander outspent Van Ostern on the air by nearly $600,000. And her help from VoteVets was substantial — more than $1 million.

Then voters in the district — which in this tiny state, means plenty involved in local politics — began receiving a message-testing survey from Van Ostern’s campaign, asking them for their opinion on a statement from the incumbent congressperson that hit Goodlander on abortion, among other issues.

Goodlander’s team began to brace for an abortion-centered attack from Kuster. Then, on Aug. 24, it hit the airwaves.

In a direct-to-camera ad, Kuster went after Goodlander on multiple fronts. She knocked Goodlander, who has worked in D.C. for all three branches of government, for having lived outside the district “for decades.” (Goodlander owns a home in the state’s other congressional district. She rented in the district in which she’s running shortly before launching her campaign.)

But it was seven words that lit the firestorm: “She gave thousands to pro-life Republicans.”

Democrats in Washington and New Hampshire were shocked — and some furious — because of Goodlander’s personal story: She was forced to deliver her stillborn baby in a hotel bathtub because in the post- Roe era, she couldn't receive medical care in time.

Kuster said in an interview she had “incredible compassion” for Goodlander’s personal story and was surprised by the level of blowback from the single mention of abortion rights in the ad. Still, she said, Goodlander’s past donations should not “be a secret” in the current race.

Goodlander donated to one former and one current Republican in 2020, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. One was Rep. Justin Amash, a Republican-turned-independent, who supported the impeachment of President Donald Trump. The other was a former law school classmate who was challenging then-Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) in a primary.

Kuster said the only reason she went negative is because VoteVets attacked her preferred candidate after Goodlander signaled she wanted the help .

“New Hampshire has never seen a negative attack ad like that in a Democratic ad. That has never happened,” Kuster said. “I would not have been involved without that ad.”

The fallout was swift

In the wake of the ad, some prominent New Hampshire endorsers flipped their support to Goodlander.

Former Democratic Gov. John Lynch and Stonyfield Yogurt co-founder Gary Hirshberg, Van Ostern’s former boss, both unendorsed him and backed Goodlander instead. Lynch even cut an ad for her.

Lynch told POLITICO he called Van Ostern after receiving a mailer from his campaign that was “incredibly negative” against Goodlander and relayed to the candidate that he was “not going to be part of a nasty campaign.” After the ad hit, Lynch said he called Van Ostern again to say: “I just can’t be part of it.”

“I respect him,” Lynch added of Van Ostern. “But I don’t respect his campaign. I think he’s listening to the wrong people in terms of advice — and he should know better.”

In an interview, Goodlander said she was surprised by Kuster’s attack, but that her focus was on Van Ostern.

“He knows my personal experience and story, and I think the kind of campaign that he's decided to run is deeply dishonest and disgraceful,” she said. She pointed to his career as a Hill staffer for a former Blue Dog Democrat: “My opponent worked for an anti-choice congressman, but I am not questioning his commitment to reproductive freedom.”

Jordan Kathleen Burns, Van Ostern’s campaign manager, said it was Goodlander and her allies who were responsible for the dark turn the campaign had taken.

“Let’s be clear: at the direction of Maggie Goodlander and her campaign, dark money groups and super PACs started all this with over $1 million in deceptive attack ads," she said.

Ripple effects on Capitol Hill

Kuster’s hometown race has reverberated through Washington.

Elect Democratic Women — a group co-founded by Kuster in 2018 to bring more pro-abortion rights women to Congress — had been neutral in the race. That changed last week. The group endorsed Goodlander, a move that two people familiar with the decision said was at least partly spurred by Kuster’s ad.

That endorsement — which was conveyed to Kuster personally by phone because of her personal involvement in the race — led to Kuster’s resignation from the group’s executive board. Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), a member of the board, added she "never" discussed the race with Kuster before that: "I personally felt it would be a conflict.”

Still, the move has baffled even Kuster’s close House colleagues, who point to her record of promoting female candidates.

“I love Annie. But I’ve been kind of shocked, since she spent her whole life on women,” one Democratic lawmaker said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personal relationship.

Kuster remains in charge of the New Democrat Coalition, a large pro-business caucus. The group’s political arm, New Dem Action Fund, endorsed Van Ostern in June, about one month after Goodlander entered the race. (Kuster recused herself from that decision.) Goodlander never applied for the group’s endorsement, according to a spokesperson for the group.

A super PAC aligned with the coalition has spent some $185,000 on mailers attacking Goodlander. That group is legally not allowed to communicate with House Democrats, and Kuster denied playing any role in the spending. But it is using her money: Her campaign account transferred $100,000 to that super PAC, the New Democrat Majority, on Aug. 9.

Kuster said it’s “a decision that I'm not involved with in any way,” and that her strong interest in the race was about ensuring her successor knew the district well and was “100 percent” committed to it.

Four Democratic lawmakers told POLITICO they were surprised by the intensity of the long-time New Hampshire leader’s campaign against Goodlander. And the spending has irked some of them, particularly those who support Goodlander.

“There’s certainly frustration within the caucus, especially because this seems driven far more by personal grievances than actual policy,” said a New Democrat member who was granted anonymity to discuss the contentious race. “Why are we spending all these resources in a safe seat when the House hangs in the balance?”