Craig shares personal pain in her first TV ad for governor
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Jun. 26—CONCORD — In her first TV ad of the campaign, Democratic candidate for governor Joyce Craig of Manchester talked about the pain of having had a miscarriage and vowed to protect reproductive freedoms for all New Hampshire women if elected.
"I'll never forget the feeling during my ultrasound when the nurse kept trying to find a heartbeat. It never came," said Craig, a former three-term mayor.
"I miscarried, and I was able to end my pregnancy without interference. I'm running for governor because these decisions belong to women, not politicians."
Craig and her attorney husband, Michael, have three children, William, Sarah and Kathryn.
Her miscarriage occurred after the birth of her two oldest children, a Craig campaign official confirmed.
"As mayor, I supported the largest Planned Parenthood in New Hampshire," Craig said.
She also chose the introduction of her candidacy on TV to attack her best-known Republican opponent, former U.S. Sen. and state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte of Nashua.
"Kelly Ayotte spent her career attacking reproductive rights. I'll always fight to protect them," Craig said.
Ayotte said Craig's ad reveals a level of desperation to her campaign.
"After avoiding interviews and public forums for months, Joyce Craig is now hiding behind a negative campaign that is lying and misleading the women of New Hampshire on my position," Ayotte said in a statement.
"I have said from day one of this race that I support and will not change New Hampshire's current law, which protects women's freedom to obtain an abortion for any reason up to six months of pregnancy and provides exceptions in the last three months for a medical emergency or a fatal fetal anomaly."
While in the Senate, Ayotte supported a federal ban on abortion, but in this race has vowed to veto any legislation that goes further than the Fetal Life Protection Act of 2021.
The ad comes after Craig's Democratic primary opponent, Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington of Concord, has spent nearly $380,000 for more than a month advertising on local TV and digital platforms.
Political observers note that Warmington had some catching up to do.
According to several independent polls, a larger percentage of likely voters did not know anything about Warmington, a two-term councilor, than they did about Craig, the former mayor of the state's largest city.
Thus far in the race, Craig has raised $2.3 million and after spending $1 million to date, she had $1.3 million in the bank.
As of a week ago, Warmington had raised $1.8 million, spent $1.3 million and had a surplus of $514,000.
Ayotte has raised $4.2 million, spent just under $900,000 and has about $3.3 million left.
Former Senate President Chuck Morse raised just over $900,000 by last December, but as a candidate committee he can choose to, and won't file another report until late August.
While both Republicans have been crisscrossing the state campaigning full-time for months, Ayotte and Morse have not begun their paid advertising with less than three months left before the Sept. 10 primary.
Early polls have installed Ayotte as the favorite in the GOP primary.
