A New Hampshire Republican who’s promised to defy the presidential election results, should he be called upon to do so in 2024, is leading in that state’s Republican Senate primary.
That Republican, Don Bolduc, received support from 32% of voters surveyed, doubling the support of his next most popular competitor Chuck Morse, at 16%, according to a new poll from the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College.
If Bolduc sounds familiar to non-New Hampshirites, they may recall an interview he gave The New Yorker last year. When asked if he would “walk the walk” when potential election objections come before the Senate again in 2024, Bolduc replied, “absolutely.”
“I thought there was a tremendous amount of fraud” in 2020, Bolduc said separately in the interview, justifying his signing of a letter, along with other retired military leaders, that said the nation was engaged in a fight between supporters of Socialism and freedom, and asserted, “The FBI and Supreme Court must act swiftly when election irregularities are surfaced and not ignore them as was done in 2020.”
Former national security advisor and Trump pardon recipient Michael Flynn participated in a fundraiser for Bolduc last October.
Bolduc also told The New Yorker he believed there was a role for the military to play in future elections, “if there is a threat to the existence of our government and our Constitution and the oath that we take.”
Thirty-nine percent of Republican voters remained undecided in the new St. Anselm poll, which surveyed 1,898 New Hampshire registered voters online between Aug. 9 and 11 and had a 3.4% margin of error.
But Bolduc’s lead in the GOP primary was compounded by voters’ apparent dissatisfaction with incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, who won her 2016 election by a margin of just 1,017 votes. According to the new poll, roughly half of those surveyed disapproved of the job Hassan is doing, and only 39% believed she deserved reelection, compared to 53% who wanted to give someone new a chance. The margin of error on that statewide question was 2.3%.
Past polls have shown Hassan beating Bolduc by a few points in hypothetical head-to-head matchups.
At a GOP Senate primary debate Sunday, multiple candidates pushed lies about the 2020 election.
“I signed a letter with 120 other generals and admirals saying Trump won the election, and damn it, I stand by [it],” Bolduc said.
Reacting to the search warrant executed at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort recently, which allegedly turned up several boxes of highly classified documents, Bolduc said: “You shouldn’t be able to raid a former president’s house at any time.”
He and another candidate, Bruce Fenton, also said they supported repealing the 17th Amendment, which required the direct election of U.S. senators. Previously, state legislatures — which around the country are plagued by gerrymandered, unrepresentative districts — selected U.S. senators themselves.
Correction: Sen. Hassan was elected to the U.S. Senate for the first time in 2016. She was not re-elected that year.
