Senate Republicans’ primary season is ending like it began — with a divisive contest in a battleground state that risks damaging the party’s hopes of retaining control of the Senate.
Donald Bolduc pauses while speaking to members of the media outside the U.S. Embassy in N'Djamena, Chad. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
But recent polling shows the frontrunner to be Don Bolduc, a candidate who lost a 2020 Senate primary and has since championed Donald Trump’s false election conspiracies and may have limited appeal to general election voters. Bolduc, a retired Army brigadier general, has regularly staked highly controversial positions even within a Republican primary — much less a general election with a more moderate electorate. Bolduc in the last year has called for the U.S. military to “get in there on the ground” in Ukraine, and has doubled down on referring to Gov. Chris Sununu as a “Chinese Communist sympathizer.”
A spokesperson for Sununu did not respond to a request for comment about whether the governor intends to endorse in the primary, nor did a representative of Trump. New Hampshire Senate President Chuck Morse gestures before signing a proclamation in the executive council chamber at the Statehouse, Jan. 4, 2017, in Concord, N.H. | Elise Amendola/AP Photo
Bolduc may have name recognition, but he’s trailing in fundraising. Bolduc had just $65,000 cash on hand at the end of June, according to campaign finance reports, compared to $975,000 for Morse and $349,000 for Smith. A spokesperson for the NRSC did not respond to a request for comment about whether the group will pull out of New Hampshire if Bolduc is on the ballot. Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, has yet to purchase fall ad time in the state.
“The majority of voters in the Republican Party are undecided — they aren’t paying attention — that’s why these three weeks are so critically important,” Dennehy said, explaining that paid and volunteer voter outreach, as well as the final two debates, will be crucial for the candidates. “It’s a very small universe of Republican voters who will turn out to vote on Election Day.”