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The close race for New Hampshire governor is not just a Trump proxy fight

With just days until Election Day, the New Hampshire gubernatorial race between Republican Kelly Ayotte and Democrat Joyce Craig is one of the most competitive in the country.

The candidates hoping to succeed Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican who has decided against seeking a sixth term, have clashed over local issues including taxes, the opioid crisis, housing and homelessness. But the race also reflects some big national issues looming in the presidential election, including abortion.

Craig, the former mayor of Manchester, has brought the issue to the fore.

“As mayor, I supported the largest Planned Parenthood in New Hampshire; Kelly Ayotte has spent her career attacking reproductive rights,” Craig said in one of the many campaign ads that flooded the state’s broadcast network.

New Hampshire law allows the procedure up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, but it is the only state in New England where abortion rights are not guaranteed by a state constitution. Craig has accused Ayotte, a former U.S. senator, of voting against abortion rights and then changing her position to run for governor.

“We cannot trust Kelly Ayotte because her actions speak much louder than her words,” Craig said in her final debate Thursday night at WMUR in Manchester.

Ayotte shot back: “I haven’t changed my position.”

While Ayotte never voted for a national abortion ban, as a senator she voted to restrict abortion rights, including defunding Planned Parenthood, According to Politifact, a political fact-checking website run by the journalism nonprofit Poynter Institute.

Ayotte now says that after the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs decision, “this issue has been returned to the states” and that as governor she would support New Hampshire's law.

“I will fight with everything I can to defend New Hampshire’s right to decide this matter and protect our law,” she said.

One of Ayotte's biggest attacks on Craig is that the former mayor of Manchester wants to make New Hampshire look too much like Massachusetts. She even adopted the slogan “Don’t Mass up New Hampshire.”

“We are one election away from becoming Massachusetts, and I will not let that happen,” Ayotte said on Fox News last year after launching her run for governor. Since then, she has been targeting Massachusetts and its governor, Maura Healey, who campaigned with Craig.

In this week's debate, Ayotte attacked Craig for embracing Massachusetts values, which she defined as “higher taxes, less freedom and a billion dollars to house illegal immigrants.”

“Why is she spending so much time with the governor of Massachusetts when she wants to represent the people of New Hampshire?” Ayotte asked.

While Ayotte is supported by Sununu, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump casts the biggest shadow over this race.

Ayotte split from Trump in 2016 following the release of the Access Hollywood tapes, before narrowly losing her race for U.S. Senate.

Now she supports Trump. But in this week's debate, WMUR confronted her with a tough question: How can she, as a former prosecutor and attorney general, overlook Trump's past as a convicted felon who has also been blamed for sexual assault?

Ayotte avoided answering the question directly, but said the race comes down to a “comparison” between the Trump administration's record and that of President Biden and Vice President Harris, and that the country is better off under Trump, particularly in terms of on the southern border and the economy.

When Ayotte was asked twice more about Trump's criminal record, he continued to avoid the question.

“Where do you draw the line?” Craig asked. “You are supporting a convicted criminal for president. He is not fit to be president.”

According to UNH politics professor Dante Scala, Ayotte has a “tortured relationship” with Trump. He said the former president presents a difficult challenge for the Republican nominee: Embrace Trump too much and risk alienating moderates and independent voters, or reject him outright and risk alienating the pro- Trump Republicans to lose.

“It’s like walking a tightrope across the Merrimack River,” Scala said. “She’s being cornered by two different groups of voters who want different things.”

Polls have consistently shown Ayotte slightly ahead of Craig. Scala says a strong vote for Harris leading Trump in New Hampshire could carry Craig to victory. If not, Ayotte could walk the tightrope to the governor's office.

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