Republicans Gun for Historic Gains in Democrat Stronghold of New England

Republican candidates, bolstered by a bleak economy, have opportunities to flip seats in New England that could leave the region specked in a Rust Belt-looking red after the midterms.

Candidates from battleground New Hampshire to Maine to deeply blue Rhode Island and Connecticut are campaigning with a laser focus on easing voters’ economic anxiety in races that would normally lean just blue enough to be out of Republicans’ reach.

But four decade-high inflation, a profoundly unpopular president, and the advantage of being the party out of power in Washington are forming what could be a perfect Nor’easter for Republicans, who have long had little presence in the region.

Democrats or independents who caucus with Democrats hold all but one of New England’s 23 congressional seats, but now roughly half a dozen of those, plus a gubernatorial seat, are in play for the GOP.

New Hampshire

New Hampshire’s four congressional seats are held by Democrats, but three of them are up for grabs this year, and state and national Republicans view all three as prime flip opportunities.

Granite State Republicans saw enormous success at the state level in 2020 when they flipped both chambers of the legislature and the state’s powerful Executive Council.

Now the party is targeting Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), as well as Reps. Chris Pappas (D-NH) and Annie Kuster (D-NH), who represent the First and Second Districts, respectively.

No Republican nominee has emerged yet as a definitive frontrunner in any of the races, and New Hampshire’s late primary, taking place September 13, makes it so candidates will not be locked in for another month.

But in the Senate race, ad data shows Republican-aligned groups like the National Republican Senatorial Committee and One Nation, among others, have already set aside a total of eight figures-worth of media reserves against Hassan and spent nearly $10 million of that, likely a mere preview of what is to come once a nominee comes into focus.

Polling from the University of New Hampshire in April showed Hassan leading four possible opponents, but within the margins of error. The same poll found Hassan, who votes almost perfectly in lockstep with President Joe Biden’s agenda, suffering the same dismal approval ratings in her state as the president had been nationally.

New Hampshire is also a “high elasticity” state, meaning a state with a high number of unaffiliated voters who tend to swing in the direction of national trends, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis. This fact makes Hassan “a bit more vulnerable,” the outlet observed.

In the First District, several viable candidates are thirsting for the chance to give their party a seat at the table in Washington.

The First District is the slightly redder district of the state’s two and is one of just five in the country that Cook Political Report rates as having no partisan leaning. The race is a toss-up in the truest sense, and Pappas won his initial election and reelection there by single digits. Top Republicans in the running include former Trump-appointed State Department official Matt Mowers, longtime TV journalist Gail Huff Brown, former Trump assistant press secretary Karoline Leavitt, and state Rep. Tim Baxter.

New Hampshire’s Second District tilts more toward Democrats and includes the blue cities of Concord and Nashua. Kuster has represented the district since 2013 and is in a slightly stronger position than Pappas considering the district’s political leanings, her longer tenure, and a lesser show of force, at least so far, from potential Republican candidates there.

Gov. Chris Sununu (R) took heat from Republicans for vetoing a redistricting map that would have made the First District more Republican-friendly and written the Second off as definitively Democrat. The new map, finalized in June, is instead separated into two highly competitive sections.

“I think Republicans can win both congressional districts,” Sununu said of the final map, per NPR. “In fact, I’m very confident Republicans are going to win both congressional districts.”

Maine

Republicans in Maine are hoping to unseat Second District Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) and one-term Gov. Janet Mills (D).

Taking on those tasks are the Democrats’ respective predecessors, former Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-ME) and former Gov. Paul LePage (R).

During a recent event in Lewiston, Breitbart News spoke with both GOP candidates and Lewiston residents and the theme of the day was overwhelmingly “inflation.”

Poliquin, who knocked on doors during the day of the event, encountered Mainer after Mainer who spoke candidly to him about their crushing costs of living.

“Groceries, fuel, just everything’s outrageous. … I’m getting scared now. Friends have recommended I sell my house,” Frances, an 80-year-old widow, told Poliquin in her driveway.

Poliquin is campaigning on reducing federal spending, closing the border, supporting law enforcement, and education reform, issues he believes will win over voters in the rural Second District, which is the less wealthy and less college-educated district of the state’s two.

Both Poliquin and LePage also speak constantly about heating oil. According to the state’s energy department, 60 percent of Maine households rely on heating oil in the winter, which is the highest percentage of any state. The department showed prices in July reaching up to $6 per gallon, the highest the state has seen in at least the last 18 years.

Poliquin is up against Golden, who is one of just a small handful of Democrats who won in districts former President Donald Trump won in 2020.

Golden is widely seen as a moderate for breaking with his party on certain major votes, but, as of Friday, he has now voted in favor of two of Democrats’ major spending packages, the latest one being the $700 billion so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which several analysts have found will not in fact reduce inflation and which no Republican in Congress supported.

Poliquin was quick to hammer Golden in a statement about his vote, saying, “Mainers are getting destroyed by high costs right now and Jared Golden supports making those costs even higher.”

LePage, who served as governor until 2019 when he was term-limited out of office, is the quintessential self-made success story. LePage rose from poverty and blue-collar odd jobs to become the most powerful political figure in the state. A strong personality with little regard for political correctness, LePage ushered in a working-class rebellion in his first campaign in 2010 and is backchanneling the same energy as he aims to fire up voters who are down on their living expenses.

In an interview with Breitbart News, LePage called Mills “very much an elitist” who is “very much out of touch with the working class.”

“It’s the same story everywhere. It’s about food costs. … It’s about heating oil. It’s about gasoline for your cars,” LePage said.

The crux of the former governor’s agenda is fiscal conservatism, and as seen with several candidates in New England, LePage largely avoids hot social issues, and abortion in particular, while Democrats perceive they have a winning “women’s rights” message on abortion after the pro-life movement’s recent monumental Roe victory.

LePage said of his priority on the economy, “We have to go back and pay attention to everybody, and what’s happening this year is people are starting to worry about their pocketbook issues. When it affects the table, the dinner table, then people pay attention, and I know my opponent doesn’t want to talk about the economy.”

Rhode Island

The Ocean State unquestionably bears the color of its nickname. Rhode Island has elected Democrats at the federal level for more than a decade and has a veto-proof Democrat trifecta running its state government.

However, former Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, a well-liked moderate Republican, is in a rare, optimal position to pick up the Second District seat left open by Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI), who is retiring after 20 years in office.

Rhode Island is another state with a late September 13 primary, but Fung is sitting comfortably as an unopposed candidate for Republicans. Democrats, on the other hand, are still jockeying for the nomination, with state General Treasurer Seth Magaziner (D) standing out as a frontrunner in terms of polling and fundraising.

Breitbart News obtained a memo in July compiled by a Fung consultant revealing polling data favoring Fung, as well as numerous other data points that boded well for the candidate, such as his high favorability rating upon leaving his mayoral post. The memo also noted Magaziner did not live in the Second District, has marched alongside “defund the police” protesters, and has campaigned with “many unpopular national Democrat figures.”

Poliquin and Fung both promote “common sense” as a campaign message on their websites, and Fung, like the others, is prioritizing gas and grocery costs while steering clear of heated social issues that could alienate independent and disaffected Democrat voters.

In a sign of Fung’s ability to reach across the aisle, Langevin, who has endorsed Magaziner, had nothing negative to say about Fung in a recent interview with Politico.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who has been on offense campaigning in competitive districts during the long August recess, swept through Rhode Island and Connecticut last weekend and shared a photo with Fung from his visit.

Connecticut

Connecticut, another blue wall state, is not entirely out of play for Republicans this year.

Both the Fifth District and the Second District are geographically large districts that sandwich the state’s smaller, inner districts where cities like Hartford and New Haven are located. Both districts are on national Republicans’ target list this year, and FiveThirtyEight deems them both competitive and leaning three points favorable toward Democrats.

Cook Political Report rates the race to unseat Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-CT) in the state’s western Fifth District as the more competitive of the two, and the Republican nominee, engineer and former state Sen. George Logan, is hoping to be the first Republican to represent the district since 2007.

Logan is taking a centrist tone as he campaigns on “radical sensibility” and a vow to “stand up to the status quo that is making it harder every day for working people in Connecticut to make ends meet.”

On the northeastern side of the state, Navy veteran and state Rep. Mike France (R) is pushing an agenda in the Second District focused primarily on jobs, a message that could resonate as Connecticut joins nearly every New England state — save Massachusetts — in having not made up its workforce participation rate since coronavirus cases crippled small businesses in 2020.

Another race to keep eyes on in the Constitution State is the U.S. Senate race.

While widely viewed as a safely Democrat seat, Cuban American businesswoman Leora Levy is currently the sole New England federal candidate endorsed by Trump and one of the few Republicans actively embracing a pro-life platform, acknowledging the illegal migration crisis as an “invasion,” and taking on other positions such as being pro-Israel and anti-communism.

Levy, though facing difficult odds, is expected to give Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) a ride over the next couple months by tying the wealthy 76-year-old Democrat tightly to Biden.

Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com. Follow her on Twitter at @asholiver.