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EXCLUSIVE: CONCORD, N.H. — As she runs this yr in one of many prime gubernatorial elections within the nation, former Sen. Kelly Ayotte is making clear she helps former President Trump’s bid to win again the White Home.
“Below Joe Biden issues value extra, we’re much less protected. There’s no query that we’re worse off than we have been than when President Trump was in workplace,” Ayotte charged in a nationwide interview with Fox Information Digital. “I’m supporting President Trump as a result of I consider we have to change programs for the nation.”
Whereas assist for the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee — due to his immense grip over the get together — looks as if a no-brainier for practically all Republicans operating in 2024 for elective workplace, for Ayotte, it takes on heightened significance.
Ayotte was a rising star within the Republican Get together in 2016 as the previous state lawyer common and first-term senator with a burgeoning profile on nationwide safety was operating for re-election.
REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS TAKE AIM AT BIDEN OVER ENERGY
Former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a Republican candidate for governor, is surrounded by supporters as she information her candidacy on the Secretary of State’s workplace in Harmony, New Hampshire, on Thursday. (Fox Information – Paul Steinhauser)
However simply forward of the 2016 election, she withdrew her assist for Trump over the “Entry Hollywood” controversy, during which Trump in a years-old video made extraordinarily crude feedback about grabbing girls with out their consent.
“I can not and won’t assist a candidate for president who brags about degrading and assaulting girls,” Ayotte mentioned on the time.
Ayotte misplaced re-election by a razor-thin margin of simply over 1,000 votes by the hands of then-Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan.
However Ayotte barely outperformed Trump in New Hampshire, as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton edged the White Home winner by lower than 3,000 votes.
TRUMP SUPPORTS THIS BLUE-STATE REPUBLICAN CRITIC OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT
Earlier than retiring full time to New Hampshire, Ayotte caught round Washington briefly after the top of her time period, shepherding then-Supreme Courtroom nominee Neil Gorsuch (Trump’s first excessive courtroom nominee) by his profitable Senate affirmation course of.
In her post-Senate profession, Ayotte loved a profitable interval as she served on company boards and in advisory roles at each private and non-private firms. Amongst them was Information Corp., which at one time was the dad or mum firm of Fox Information.
Ayotte in the course of the intervening years additionally saved an in depth eye on New Hampshire politics, and would sometimes seem at Republican Get together occasions within the state. She additionally continued to put in writing opinion items on main state, nationwide and worldwide points.
The previous senator introduced her gubernatorial bid practically a yr in the past, after standard Republican Gov. Chris Sununu introduced he would not search re-election in 2024 to what would have been an unprecedented fifth two-year time period.
Ayotte stayed impartial in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential major, however she endorsed Trump in early March, proper after he clinched the GOP nomination.
“He’ll repair the catastrophe over the southern border and we’re additionally seeing it on the northern border, to maintain the nation protected,” Ayotte advised Fox Information on Thursday.
She added that Trump “additionally has a unique imaginative and prescient by way of freedom and taxes” and argued that President Biden “has actually, sadly, been a catastrophe for the nation, and we want a change.”
Ayotte was interviewed minutes after she was greeted by a big crowd of supporters as she arrived on the Secretary of State’s workplace on the Statehouse in Harmony, New Hampshire, to formally file her candidacy for governor.
Whereas she’s the polling and fundraising front-runner for the GOP nomination in New Hampshire’s early September major, she’s come below repeated assault by her rival, former longtime state Senate president Chuck Morse, who got here in second in a crowded area of contenders within the 2022 U.S. Senate Republican major.
Former New Hampshire state Senate president Chuck Morse, a Republican candidate for governor, shakes fingers with a supporter as he arrives on the Secretary of State’s workplace to file his candidacy in Harmony, New Hampshire, on June 5. (Chuck Morse gubernatorial marketing campaign )
“I feel there’s an enormous distinction between myself and Kelly Ayotte,” Morse mentioned final week as he filed on the Statehouse. “I began as a conservative, and I completed as a conservative as Senate president, and I promise you, I will probably be a governor that’s a conservative.
“That’s not what Kelly did when she went to Washington.”
And hours earlier than she arrived to file, a Morse marketing campaign memo requested which Ayotte would present up, “the so-called conservative candidate Kelly or the reasonable institution she has at all times been in workplace.”
THIS FORMER REPUBLICAN SENATOR NOW LAUNCHES BID FOR GOVERNOR IN KEY SWING STATE
Ayotte pushed again on Thursday, emphasizing, “I’m a commonsense, robust conservative, and I’m going to proceed this state down the trail that Gov. Sununu has. And we’re going to have even brighter days forward.”
And pointing to Morse, she argued, “I’ve recognized Chuck a very long time, and it is a unhappy means for him to finish his political profession.”
Morse, in an announcement to Fox Information, fired again, charging that “Governor Chris Sununu adopted a path blazed by conservative leaders like me, whereas Kelly’s report is suffering from dangerous coverage decisions and voting with [Barack] Obama over 260 occasions. This state deserves leaders who face powerful questions, not those that conceal from accountability. I am right here, able to reply to the individuals and proceed transferring New Hampshire ahead. If Kelly cannot face her personal report, how can she lead?”
Morse, who wasn’t notably near Trump when the previous president first ran for the White Home, endorsed Trump in December. He is showcased his backing of Trump and for months questioned Ayotte’s assist for the previous president.
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Whereas he is made dozens of endorsements in aggressive Republican primaries throughout the nation, Trump stays impartial within the New Hampshire gubernatorial race.
Requested if she’d embrace a Trump endorsement and if she’d marketing campaign with him within the Granite State, Ayotte advised Fox Information she would “actually recognize” the previous president’s backing. “Anybody who’s providing their assist, I’d like to have their assist,” she mentioned.
“However alternatively, you concentrate on what’s a very powerful subject on this race and it’s the individuals of New Hampshire,” she emphasised. “So I’m campaigning day-after-day to get the assist and earn the assist of the voters on this race, and that’s what I’m doing on the marketing campaign path and can proceed to do.”
Ayotte additionally praised Sununu, who up to now has remained impartial within the race to reach New Hampshire’s governor’s workplace.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu speaks with Fox Information throughout a Republican Governors Affiliation information convention at an oil refinery in Chalmette, Louisiana, on June 3. (Fox Information – Paul Steinhauser)
“The trail that Gov. Sununu has us on is one among prosperity, one among extra freedom… I need to proceed us down that path,” she mentioned. “I recognize his management and the work that he’s completed, and I need to proceed his success for his state.”
Ayotted added that “he and I see one another on a regular basis. We see one another on the marketing campaign path. We’ve recognized one another a very long time. I respect him and we now have an amazing relationship.”
In her Fox Information interview and chatting with reporters at her submitting, Ayotte additionally took goal at former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig and govt councilor Cinde Warmington, the 2 fundamental Democrats operating for governor.
“My Democratic opponents have a really completely different imaginative and prescient for New Hampshire. They really suppose that the Massachusetts mannequin is best,” she reiterated.
Since launching her marketing campaign, Ayotte has focused her Democratic rivals over New Hampshire’s progressive neighbor to the south, which has lengthy been a goal for Granite State conservatives.
The Democratic Governors Affiliation, in an announcement, charged that Ayotte “is a self-serving politician who will say or do something to win, even mendacity to Granite Staters about her harmful report of proscribing reproductive freedom.”
Requested about her stance on abortion as she filed, Ayotte emphasised that she would defend New Hampshire’s state legislation that enables abortions by the primary 24 weeks of being pregnant.
“As governor, I’ll defend that legislation. I can’t change it. In order that they’re deceptive the ladies of New Hampshire proper now by making them suppose that there’s going to be one thing else that can occur. I would like them to know what our legislation, that I’ll defend it and that I received’t change it,” she mentioned.
Ayotte added that she “would pledge to veto restrictions” to the present state legislation.
Get the newest updates from the 2024 marketing campaign path, unique interviews and extra at our Fox Information Digital election hub.
Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based mostly in New Hampshire.
Former GOP senator who broke with Trump in 2016 reveals why she is backing him this time
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