New Hampshire Democrat State Party Chairman Ray Buckley had this to say about Democrat Wendy Thomas getting smoked in yesterday’s special election loss in Merrimack.
Related: Congratulations: Republican Bill Boyd Wins Merrimack Special Election for the NH House
“NH Democrats have never won a state special election held on town Election Day. Ever,” Buckley said on Twitter. “Merrimack is a Republican town. Period.”
The same report notes that when all is said and done, about 100,000.00 dollars was spent by Democrat Party interests on this race, and I doubt that includes the intangible stuff like that Democrat out-of-stater postcard campaign (which might violate election law, that remains to be seen).
A few observations.
- If the seat was unwinnable, why’d you try so hard to win it?
- Democrats knew the race was on town election day.
- They didn’t spend that money on her challenger Bill Boyd (his side spent half that).
- Democrats won plenty of other races in town, including Wendy’s bud (and former NH House Rep) Nancy Murphy, who captured a Town Council Seat by 150 votes.
As to it being a Republican town, it has more registered Republicans, but independents own 40% of the electorate.
Did Murphy and other lefties win local races because those are non-partisan on the ballot, and many people (independents) didn’t know or never realized they are like Wendy Thomas?
The problem is not that ‘Merrimack is a Republican Town.’ The problem is that we continue to have non-partisan local elections. When Democrats have to run as Democrats in my town, they tend to lose with rare exceptions.
Maybe this is a good time for the Republican Majority State Legislature to make town elections partisan instead of non-partisan. They can even sell it as a way to lower local property taxes, which Democrats have been harping on for years.
And it will work. Elect more Republicans, and those local taxes will go down everywhere, but the deep blue college towns as voters kick the stealth tax and spenders off every local board and committee.
That’s the lesson we should take away from Merrimack this week.
