Politics

New Hampshire’s GOP Gov. Kelly Ayotte draws her first major challenger

Published

4 months ago

February 18, 2026

Cinde Warmington launched a repeat bid for governor of New Hampshire on Wednesday, giving Democrats their first major challenger to GOP Gov. Kelly Ayotte in the purple state.

Warmington, a former state executive councilor, ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2024, losing the Democratic nomination to former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig who then went on to lose to Ayotte. She now enters a relatively open Democratic field, with just one other declared candidate.

In a launch video posted to her campaign website, Warmington attacked Ayotte for “making your life more expensive.” She also accused the Republican of not standing up to President Donald Trump’s attempts to open an ICE detention facility in the state.

“I’ll stand up to Trump when he jacks up health care costs and tariffs. I’ll say ‘no’ to ICE’s warehouse. I’ll work for our small businesses and I’ll make sure we don’t have a sales or income tax,” Warmington said in the video. WMUR first reported her launch.

Ayotte, for her part, has clashed with Trump. She has criticized the lack of transparency around the ICE warehouse and forced the resignation of a state official who had been communicating with the Trump administration without alerting the governor. Her refusal to redistrict last year led the White House to weigh putting up a primary challenger against her.

Ayotte spokesperson John Corbett blasted Warmington in a statement, saying the former health care lobbyist “chose to make money off big pharmaceutical companies who hurt Granite Staters, and she is absolutely disqualified from serving as our Governor.”

Democrats are bullish they can block Ayotte from a second term, emboldened by their party’s wins in the off-year elections. But they face an uphill battle in a blue-leaning battleground state that routinely elects Republican governors while sending all-Democratic delegations to Congress.

Recent history is not on Democrats’ side: The party thrice failed to unseat Ayotte’s predecessor, Republican Gov. Chris Sununu. And prognosticators rate the seat as “likely Republican” this year.

Democrats may also face another messy primary just two years after Warmington and Craig waged a bruising battle to be their party’s nominee. For now, just Warmington and Democrat Jon Kiper, who finished a distant third in the 2024 race, have declared their candidacies. But Democratic Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern has been publicly weighing a bid for governor as recently as this month.

A University of New Hampshire survey from January showed Ayotte leading both men in hypothetical general-election matchups; it did not test her against Warmington. Ayotte notched a 50-percent approval rating in the poll, though 44 percent of likely voters said she did not deserve to be reelected compared to 42 percent who did.

Politics

Wes Moore lays out his vision for America

Published

2 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is on an Independence Day collision course with President Donald Trump.

Moore is planning to deliver a sweeping speech on patriotism on July Fourth from the Maryland State House in Annapolis — with the aim of counterprogramming what Trump promised would be the “most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all, a ‘TRIBUTE TO AMERICA.’”

In an interview with Blue Light News, Moore said he thinks Trump is going to spend the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding talking about himself — but that America deserves something more.

“The president is incapable of meeting the moment,” Moore said.

In his split-screen remarks, called “The Work of Patriotism,” the former Army captain and Afghanistan veteran is expected to “make the case that Democrats cannot cede patriotism to Donald Trump — and that love of country is not about loyalty to one man, one party, or one political spectacle,” according to Ammar Moussa, Moore’s press secretary.

Moore will “draw a contrast between patriotism and nationalism, making the case that nationalism is about allegiance to a person or a movement, while patriotism is about allegiance to the country and the people who make it worth fighting for,” Moussa said.

“We are a nation of strength because we are a nation of sacrifice,” Moore will say, according to a draft of his remarks.

But Moore insisted he’s not trying to be a foil to the president.

“I’m trying to be a foil to darkness,” Moore said. “I think I’m trying to be a foil to fatalism. I think I’m trying to be a foil to self-serving ideologies. What I want people to know in all this is that I believe strongly that we need a future-facing vision for this nation.”

That’s exactly what someone who’s “not running” for president would say, right? Standard Maryland gubernatorial reelection fare.

The speech follows a pattern of growing visibility for Moore. He’s been on numerous podcasts and in new media. The day after his speech, he’s expected to appear on an episode of Jubilee’s “Surrounded,” a booking that’s becoming routine for prominent Democratic figures such as Pete Buttigieg, Texas Senate candidate James Talarico and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

On Saturday, Moore is heading to battleground Michigan, a potential early 2028 primary state, where he’ll stump for gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson in Detroit, Saginaw and Flint — all pivotal locales to win reelection in Maryland, of course.

Moore has said he’s “laser-focused” on his 2026 reelection campaign. Or, as he explained in an interview with POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin: “I’m hungry, but I’m not thirsty.”

The Maryland governor also had his own thoughts about what the progressive victories in New York’s primaries mean, and how that insurgent energy could be harnessed by 2028 Democrats.

“I think harnessing the energy means driving for the results that people are aspiring to,” Moore said, citing primary wins in his own backyard too: “I created an entire slate, the Leave No One Behind slate in Maryland that was wildly successful, and if you look at the candidates that I endorsed and supported, you can’t find an ideological thread in them. We endorsed the progressive legislator from Montgomery County, and we supported the prosecutor in Baltimore County.”

In fact, Moore endorsed some 200 candidates across the state, and his advisers say 93 percent have either won or are in the lead.

“What connects them is a belief that the status quo has got to be disrupted,” Moore said.

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