CONCORD — Republican candidate for governor Kelly Ayotte of Nashua is beginning her paid media phase of her campaign Tuesday with a 30-second TV ad in which she charges her main Democratic rivals are soft on crime and supported spending that would raise taxes on New Hampshire citizens.
“This election is about keeping New Hampshire exceptional. The other side will raise taxes and coddle crime – that’s nuts!” Ayotte, a former U.S. senator, said in the ad.
“As governor, I’ll keep New Hampshire strong, safe and free because that’s who we are.”
The ad drew heavily on her experiences as a homicide prosecutor and later the state’s first woman attorney general in New Hampshire.
“She put a cop killer on death row; a tough-as-nails prosecutor who fought for victims,” the narrator says at the opening of the commercial.
Ayotte prosecuted Michael “Stix” Addison for the 2006 slaying of Manchester Patrolman Michael Briggs.
After a murder trial, Addison was given the death penalty in 2008.
He remained on death row even after the New Hampshire Legislature repealed capital punishment in 2019 because that law applied to prospective cases.
Addison still faced a potential death sentence.
Former Senate President Chuck Morse of Salem is the other major Republican running in the Sept. 10 primary.
Ayotte has criticized the two leading Democratic candidates, Joyce Craig of Manchester and Cinde Warmington of Concord, for declining to support legislation to ban sanctuary city policies in the state.
The House of Representatives rejected a Senate-passed bill on that topic during the closing weeks of the 2024 legislative session.
Warmington said she’s not taken a position; Craig signed up in support of a different bill in 2023 to make it easier for undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses.
Ayotte sets record for raising money
On spending, the Ayotte campaign pointed to Craig’s record as mayor of Manchester, during which she proposed tax increases and budgets that exceed the city’s tax cap.
Ayotte said Warmington’s Clean Energy Economy plan would lead to higher utility bills with the goal of reaching zero emissions.
When asked what her plan would cost, Warmington said the plan set broad goals for reducing emissions.
In this campaign, Warmington said if elected that she would oppose any increase in taxes and has challenged Ayotte to debate her on the issues.
Newmarket restaurant owner Jon Kiper is also seeking the Democratic nomination for governor.
The seven-figure ad buy from Ayotte’s campaign will include ads on broadcast, digital and streaming services, campaign officials said.
Efforts to reach voters through mail and digital advertising will also be part of this latest strategy, they said.
Ayotte has already broken a record for any candidate for governor by raising $4.2 million; former GOP Gov. Craig Benson spent roughly three times that to win the office in 2002, but nearly all of it was his own money.