NASHUA, N.H. — In an editorial published this morning, the New Hampshire Union Leader endorsed Governor Kelly Ayotte:
Ayotte for governor: A New Hampshire Advantage
As Gov. Kelly Ayotte enters the final months of her first term, it’s clear that she came to Concord to work. With energy and focus, she has achieved much in a short time, easily earning another two years to build on her successes.
In 2024, Ayotte promised to focus on keeping New Hampshire “safe, prosperous and free.” She has done so.
Last year she signed a bill to roll back flawed changes to the state’s bail laws. She followed up this year with a bill to further strengthen those laws.
She campaigned on banning sanctuary cities in the state, and she followed through, signing two bills to end local officials’ defiance of federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Two years ago, crime and public safety were among the top issues in the governor’s race. This year, no one is talking about them. Ayotte’s efforts to ensure that law enforcement officers had the tools they needed to do their jobs surely contributed to the state’s improved public safety environment.
On the economy, she signed a bill to lower the Business Enterprise Tax if certain revenue triggers are met, and she signed the bill to send a school property tax cap to voters this fall. She signed bills to refocus New Hampshire energy policy on reliable and affordable sources of energy, allow off-grid energy production and advance nuclear power. And she created a Commission on Government Efficiency to recommend cost-cutting measures.
The state’s most pressing affordability problem is housing. Gov. Ayotte has taken this issue head on, signing nearly two dozen housing reform bills during her 21 months in office. We aren’t aware of any governor in state history who’s done more to improve the housing market. The market will continue to respond to those changes. As it does, she will rightly share the credit with lawmakers of both parties who worked tirelessly to draft and pass those bills.
Keeping her promise to expand freedom, Ayotte did more than sign good tax bills. She signed a bill making everyone who’s eligible to attend a K-12 public school also eligible for an Education Freedom Account. To go with it, she signed a parents’ bill of rights for families whose children attend public schools.
Ayotte advanced school choice and parents’ rights while also increasing state per-pupil education funding. Though she could have ignored recent developments in the decades-long Claremont school funding cases, she boldly moved this year to bring those suits to a satisfactory conclusion for both taxpayers and students. Courts will decide, but she did her duty and then some.
Those are great accomplishments for a first-term governor. Ayotte succeeded while breaking with her own party on a number of issues. The governor is a bulldog when she wants to be, as both Republicans and Democrats have discovered. She doesn’t mind standing alone when she believes she’s doing the right thing.
Gov. Ayotte came to Concord with one goal. Protect the New Hampshire Advantage. She’s done an excellent job of it. Her friend and mentor, the late Gov. Steve Merrill, who coined that term, would be proud. Granite Staters can be proud too. She’s earned another term, and voters would do well to re-elect her.
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