Kelly Ayotte is no conservative … unless you define “conservative” as spending the first five years of your Senate term being a mini-me John McCain and the last as a mini-me Jeannie Shaeenie. Morse is no conservative either … he voted to enshrine Obamacare into State law and staunchly supported COVID-tyranny.
More importantly, running as a “conservative” is not the way to win statewide office in New Hampshire for the foreseeable future. Hell, even the supposedly “conservative” CD-1 looks like it is going to belong to Chris Pappas for as long as he wants it. So why should the NHGOP primary be about which candidate is the most conservative … given that real conservatism is anathema to a majority of New Hampshire voters?
Let’s look at the 2022 CD-1 primary and general election. Karoline Leavitt received approximately 25,000 votes in the primary, while Mowers and Gail Huff Brown … who presumably were viewed as less conservative than Leavitt … combined for approximately 33,000. Prescott and Baxter combined for approximately 15,000.
Pappas won the general election by a landslide … 167,000 to 142,000. The “conservative” in CD-2, Burns, fared even worse. He was blown out by 36,000 votes. So, I ask again, why are Ayotte and Morse … who aren’t even conservatives … making the primary about who is the conservative? Makes no sense.
Sun-King Chris Sununu did NOT repeatedly win elections because the majority of voters believed he was a real conservative. He won precisely because the voters believed, quite correctly, that he was NOT a real conservative. I am aware that Sununu used the term “conservative” to describe himself, but his positions … abortion-on-demand, “diversity-is-our-strength,” boys participating in girls’ school sports, COVID-tyranny, etc., etc., etc. … were anything but real conservativism.
Unfortunately, bitter-clingers this is what New Hampshire has become … a place where only a pseudo-Republican like a Chris Sununu or a Larry Hogan or a Charlie Baker can win a major office like Governor or Congress.
What probably would best position Ayotte and Morse for the general election is to just drop the conservative-schtick.