Dems’ primary fights head to New Hampshire
Politico | by Eli Okun
PRIMARY COLORS: Democrats’ summer of squabbling is nearly over. But before primary season ends, New Hampshire voters are still a week out from some of the party’s last decisions between center-left frontrunners and progressive upstarts.
With New Hampshire slated to vote third in the 2028 presidential primary, next week’s results could provide a blueprint for what Granite Staters will want from White House aspirants. On every side of the ideological spectrum, Democrats in these competitive races say they’re keenly attuned to populist anger at President Donald Trump and failing national structures. But they’re also divided over electability, AIPAC, nepo babies, money in politics and more. With multiple races potentially competitive in November, the stakes are high.
In the Senate campaign, Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) was long seen as the heir apparent for Democrats’ nomination, and he has the fundraising numbers to prove it. But a University of New Hampshire poll last week set some tongues wagging when it showed Karishma Manzur narrowing his lead to 13 points.
Outside observers expect Pappas to pull it off — and indeed his own survey presages a blowout. That leaves Manzur hoping for a polling error more like Angie Nixon’s or Julie Gonzales’ than Francesca Hong’s.
“In some ways, Manzur is the lightning rod,” said Dante Scala, a political science professor at UNH. “All that [progressive] energy is looking for a place to descend upon. … Pappas is such a normie Democrat. It’s a real contrast.”
A scientist who went up with a new connected TV ad Friday, Manzur positions herself in the lineage of those progressive outsiders. She has predicated her campaign on grassroots activism and an intense fighting spirit against Wall Street, D.C. consultants and the establishment.
As for electability against likely GOP nominee John Sununu? “This is an old trick they have used on us for a long time,” Manzur told Playbook. “That kind of fear has to stop. And that is a fear that is really I think coming from the consultant class or the donor class.”
Pappas, by contrast, is a more polished and familiar face in New Hampshire politics, having won his formerly swingy seat four times. He’s refused to go negative against Manzur, instead leaning on an anti-corruption reform message and a deep bench of endorsements. Pappas argues he can better channel voters’ frustration into more effective action.
“While folks are incredibly angry — and I share their anger — they also know that the path forward for New Hampshire requires someone who’s going to stand up and take on big fights, and is going to be able to win them,” he said.
Pappas is also warning Democrats can’t take a victory for granted, as Republican outside groups spend big to flip the seat with Sununu as a credible contender (though he has to beat fellow former Sen. Scott Brown in the GOP primary first).
Perhaps the more plausible upset could come in the race to replace Pappas, in which veteran Maura Sullivan and health care advocate Stefany Shaheen have vied for the lead all cycle. The two frontrunners faced a crowded field of lesser-known progressives, none of whom broke away from the pack for much of the race.
But in recent weeks, Carleigh Beriont has risen into third place in the polls. Heath Howard, who was running in fourth, dropped out and endorsed her last week, raising the prospect of progressive consolidation (though others, like the well-funded Christian Urrutia, remain). A local government leader in Hampton, Beriont brings a history of union organizing from her time as a Harvard grad student. She also spent three years in the Marshall Islands researching the history of U.S. nuclear testing — expertise Beriont says gives her an angle into talking with voters about the Iran war’s effect of weakening nuclear deterrence.
Progressive values have also increasingly emerged as wedge issues in a spate of attacks between Shaheen and Sullivan, though both are seen as more center-left. Shaheen, who supports Medicare for All and draws motivation from her daughter’s experience with type 1 diabetes, told Playbook “we can’t tinker around the edges” of the health care system. Sullivan touts a “Medicare for all who want it” policy.
But what’s animating the race in its final stretch is Shaheen’s negative ad against Sullivan for receiving contributions from many donors to AIPAC. At a Sullivan campaign event earlier this month, Playbook’s Ali Bianco spotted a sign outside denouncing the contributions. The Obama administration alum, in turn, slammed Shaheen as “entitled” and trading on “a fancy last name” in reference to her mother, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who served as governor before that.
“Let me be very clear: These are [bald]-faced lies,” Sullivan told reporters earlier this month. “I haven’t taken a dime of corporate PAC money from AIPAC, Palantir or any ICE vendor.”
It all makes for a high-octane finish in both races, with turnout difficult to predict for an election directly after Labor Day. And there will be at least one more big moment in each on the debate stage: House candidates will square off Thursday and Senate candidates Friday.
