Active primary season in store for Monadnock Region races

Jun. 14—Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington, whose District 2 takes in much of the Monadnock Region, hopes she will be joined on the panel by other Democrats after the general election, but first she needs to win her primary contest.

Warmington, a health care attorney who lives in Concord, faces two other Democrats in the Sept. 13 primary — Michael Cryans of Hanover, who served on the council from 2019 to 2020, and Bradford Todd of Keene.

In a campaign event in Keene on Friday, Warmington introduced Democratic U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan of Newfields, who is seeking re-election, but first Warmington spoke about her own race.

She is the only Democrat on the five-member Executive Council, which shares executive power with the governor and has wide-ranging approval over state spending and contracts. She has been on the short end of a series of 4-1 votes.

"This is an Executive Council so out of touch with the values of Granite Staters that they turned down $27 million in vaccine funding right at the time when the booster vaccines were being released and when our pediatric vaccines were being released," she said Friday. "They chose to turn it down because they decided to make a political point on how they didn't believe in vaccines."

In October, the council rejected this money from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The next month it accepted most of the funding.

Warmington said the initial vote was a case of putting politics over people.

"And they did it again when they defunded Planned Parenthood, they did it again when they put someone in charge of the Department of Energy who doesn't believe in climate change and they did it over again when they put Frank Edelblut in charge of our public schools and he doesn't believe in public schools," she said.

Late last year, the council turned down $125,000 in funding for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, which has a Keene location, $558,395 for the Equality Health Center in Concord and $336,934 for the Joan G. Lovering Health Center in Greenland. These organizations provide reproductive care for women.

Also last year, the council approved Jared Chicoine as commissioner of the state Department of Energy. Warmington said at the time he had no technical expertise for the job and that he believes, wrongly in her opinion, that private markets will take care of climate change.

In 2017, the council confirmed Edelblut as the state's education commissioner. The businessman and former Republican state representative homeschooled his children. Some have criticized him as not being supportive enough of traditional public education.

For his part, Cryans, one of Warmington's Democratic opponents, said he is also opposed to the decision to deny funding for Planned Parenthood, and is a strong advocate for public education. He's opposed to creating roadblocks that make it more difficult for people to vote in elections.

Cryans served 19 years as a Grafton County Commissioner. He is a former school teacher and ran a nonprofit focused on substance misuse and suicide.

He's a big believer in constituent services.

"The way I look at it, the farther you are from Concord, the more you feel forgotten," he said in an interview. "One of the big issues — and I'm not sure we have a lot of say in it but we had to be mindful — is the inflation issue, the price of gas, food, increases in rent. And we always know those things hit the people that can afford it the least."

Todd, the other Democratic challenger for Warmington's position, did not immediately return a call for comment.

This race is among several in the Monadnock Region in which a party primary will be necessary to select the Democratic or Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 general election.

The 10-day candidate filing period ended Friday, but the secretary of state's office says the final list of candidates is still subject to change.

That's because the office still may receive forms through the mail from municipal clerks. Also, political parties can, until Wednesday, place people into contention for positions now lacking candidates.

On the Republican side of the Executive Council's District 2 race, Harold French of Canterbury is leaving his state Senate seat in a bid to join the panel. In the primary, he will face Kim Strathdee of Lincoln, who lost Executive Council primaries in 2018 and 2020.

In a high-profile local state Senate race, Democratic Keene City Councilor Bobby Williams faces three-term N.H. Rep. Donovan Fenton, also of Keene, to decide who will be the Democratic nominee to succeed Jay Kahn in District 10. Kahn, a Democrat, has served six years in the Senate. He announced earlier this year he wouldn't seek re-election.

Williams, a software developer, says he wants to protect the environment, fight homelessness, reduce gun violence and help families.

Fenton, vice president of Fenton Family Dealerships in Swanzey, promises to work on improving the availability of childcare and affordable housing, while trying to lower property taxes.

In the Republican primary for that seat, Ian Freeman of Keene will face Sly Karasinski of Swanzey.

In Cheshire County House District 15, which covers most of Keene as well as five other local communities, Democratic Rep. Paul Berch of Westmoreland is in a three-person race for two seats. His challengers are Rep. Amanda Elizabeth Toll and political newcomer Renee Monteil, both of Keene. On the Republican side, Malia Boaz of Westmoreland and Joseph Mirzoeff and John Schmitt, both of Keene, have filed for the 15th district seats.

Rick Green can be reached at RGreen@KeeneSentinel.com or 603-355-8567