Kelly Ayotte is running for governor in New Hampshire

Former Senator Kelly Ayotte is running to be the next governor of New Hampshire. She is running for the Republican nomination, she said, because she doesn’t want New Hampshire to turn into Massachusetts.

“I’m running for governor because New Hampshire is one election away from becoming Massachusetts — from becoming something we are not,” Ayotte said in a prepared statement. “I was born here and raised here. I raised my kids here, and you know what? I am going to die here because this state and it’s people are different. What we have here is worth fighting for.”

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu announced last week that he will not run for re-election. It would have been a record fifth term. Sununu is one of only two New Hampshire governors that have served four consecutive terms. The other governor was a Democrat. Sununu decided earlier this year not to run for president and he took a pass on running for the U.S. Senate in 2022. He’s young yet, only 48 years old, so he has plenty of time to step away from elected office now and pursue other things and then come back to politics if that is something he wants to do. I don’t think he’ll just disappear from being in the public’s eye.

She has a history of serving in public office. Ayotte, 55, was the state’s attorney general from 2004-2009. She served in the U.S. Senate from 2011-2017. She praised Sununu for his work as governor and said she would work to ensure the state “remains safe, prosperous and free.” She does face some competition in the primary from a former state Senate president, Chuck Morse, age 62, who announced his candidacy last week. There are two Democrat women who have declared their candidacies for governor.

Ayotte was defeated in 2016 in her re-election bid by less than 1,000 votes. She lost to Democrat Maggie Hassan, who is now in her second term in the Senate. Right out of the gate, Ayotte has some hefty endorsements in New Hampshire politics. She has the endorsements of former Senator Judd Gregg, former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, former Governor Craig Benson, current House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, and Rochester Mayor Paul Callaghan. An experienced politician, she has her ducks in a row as she enters the primary race.

She explained her decision to run on Fox and Friends this morning.

“Gov. Sununu did a great job, but there’s going to be a vacuum there,” Ayotte said on “Fox & Friends.”

“We are one election away from becoming Massachusetts in New Hampshire, and I’m not going to let that happen,” she said. “We have something very special in New Hampshire — no income (tax), no sales tax, education freedom is so important in our state. So I’m running for governor to make sure that New Hampshire remains safe, prosperous and free.”

That sounds like a solidly traditional Republican wish list. Education freedom is a very timely issue as the desire for school choice is beginning to flourish in many states after the horrors of online learning produced results from which a generation of school children may never recover. After years of Republican candidates talking about school choice on the campaign trail to get the support of voters, only to quickly abandon the issue once in office, it is refreshing to notice parents demanding better of politicians now.

In her farewell speech when she left office in 2016, she referenced the importance of improving services for veterans and she spoke about the opioid epidemic. There is still an opioid epidemic but now it is fentanyl, not heroin or prescription opioid abuse as it was when she spoke in 2016. Ayotte said her number one priority is to make sure New Hampshire is safe. She said, “and that means getting those fentanyl dealers — we need tougher penalties to get them off our streets. ”

Ayotte ran into some trouble in 2016 for initially supporting Trump but then backing off her support. After the “Access Hollywood” tape came out, she said she would write in the name of Mike Pence on her ballot. Trump is still popular in New Hampshire so we’ll see how her remarks from 2016 play out now.

Sununu won re-election by large margins in 2020 and 2022. Democrats won other statewide elections. Democrats look at this race as a chance to gain control of the governor’s office.