Bolduc, Hassan in tight race that could determine US Senate control

Nov. 2—Retired Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc has been running for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire for more than two years.

He lost in the Republican primary in the race against Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in 2020, but won his party's nomination this year in his bid to defeat Sen. Maggie Hassan.

The 60-year-old Stratham resident campaigns with Victor, a black German shepherd service dog, who helps him with post-traumatic stress disorder he said he suffered in multiple combat tours over a three-decade career in the U.S. Army.

While in the military, Bolduc survived a serious helicopter crash and a 2,000-pound bomb being dropped on his position, both in Afghanistan. Once retired, he lived through a heart attack.

He once called popular GOP Gov. Chris Sununu "a communist sympathizer," and Sununu called him a conspiracy theorist and "not a serious candidate." But the two men shared a hug after the Sept. 13 primary in which Bolduc narrowly defeated Senate President Chuck Morse, R-Salem.

Democratic political action committees supported Bolduc's candidacy during the primary in hopes of fielding an extreme and vulnerable candidate in the general election. But as Nov. 8 nears, he and Hassan, 64, of Newfields, are locked in a tight race with control of the evenly divided U.S. Senate at stake.

Hassan, who is seeking her second term, emphasizes her ability to work across the political aisle on a variety of issues, including infrastructure, gun safety and medical-billing reform.

Hassan, an attorney, was governor of New Hampshire from 2013 to 2017.

She touts the Democratic-backed Inflation Reduction Act, which tackles climate change through renewable-energy initiatives. It provides tax breaks for people to make their homes more energy efficient. It also contains provisions aimed at lowering prescription drug prices.

Bolduc said green energy proposals will be costly for consumers.

"And how about China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, the biggest polluters in the world?" he asked in an NHPR debate last week. "She's got nothing to say about that. America does a great job and will continue to do a great job for our environment and our climate, and I will be a champion for that."

Bolduc casts himself as an outsider who would help limit the government spending he claims is responsible for inflation. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says prices in September were up 8.2 percent compared to the previous year.

Prices are up by a similar or greater amount in many countries across the globe after supply-chain disruptions caused by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

"Everything has doubled — oil, gas, food, everything — and it's her fault," Bolduc said, pointing his finger at Hassan in the NHPR debate. "Her votes have driven this."

A few minutes later, he said excess government spending is the fault of Republicans and Democrats.

"Both parties are extreme," he said. "Both parties can't come together for the economy, out-of-control spending and the safety and security of this nation."

Hassan said it's Bolduc who is extreme.

During the primary, he said the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump through election fraud. This false conspiracy theory led to the violent Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol even though dozens of courts and Trump's former Attorney General Bill Barr rejected the notion of a rigged election.

After Bolduc won the primary, he reversed himself and said the election wasn't stolen.

Then, in a radio interview on Oct. 10 on "The Kuhner Report," he suggested the midterm election could be stolen through a "late night or some sort of dump with ballots or some sort of dump with votes that come from machines, and the next thing you know, you wake up in the morning and the election has changed. That is still real."

Hassan's campaign has set up a website, Bolducfacts.com, that has audio and video of various controversial statements Bolduc has made. It has also highlighted his comments in campaign ads.

During this year's primary campaign, Bolduc said people should "rejoice" in the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which had guaranteed the right to an abortion. Restrictions on the procedure now rest at the state level, which Bolduc says is where they belong.

The website also includes video clips of comments he made during the primary about privatizing Medicare.

"The privatization is hugely important. Getting government out of it, getting government money with strings attached out of it," Bolduc said at a campaign town hall event in Pembroke on Aug. 2.

For his part, Bolduc said during the NHPR debate that Hassan is running a dirty campaign that implies he would support federal abortion restrictions, when he doesn't, or that he would eliminate Social Security. Bolduc has said that the system could undergo major changes over time, but that these changes wouldn't hurt people.

"She lies, she continues to lie," Bolduc said. "Her commercials are hurtful."

But in a campaign event last week in North Hampton, Bolduc waded into another controversy by repeating a debunked myth that some schools have litter boxes for children pretending to be cats.

"Guess what? We have furries and fuzzies in classrooms," Bolduc told the crowd. "They lick themselves, they're cats. When they don't like something, they hiss — people walk down the hallway and jump out," he said.

"And get this, get this. They're putting litter boxes, right? Litter boxes for that. ... These are the same people that are concerned about spreading germs. Yet they let, they let children lick themselves and then touch everything. And they're starting to lick each other."

In addition to Bolduc and Hassan, voters will see a third candidate on the general election ballot, Libertarian Jeremy Kauffman of Manchester, who promises on his website — https://jeremy4nh.com/home/ — to fight against federal overreach.

Find information about the candidates, voting, sample ballots and more for the upcoming election at www.sentinelsource.com/vote/

Rick Green can be reached at rgreen@keenesentinel.com or 603-355-8567.