The Republican Party’s good fortune in decennial redistricting extends to tiny New Hampshire, where the state’s two congressional districts are poised to be redrawn just enough to turn one of them red for the foreseeable future.
Both New Hampshire seats in the House of Representatives are represented by Democrats, partisan dominance threatened by more than midterm elections in 2022 that could serve as voter rebuke of President Joe Biden. In New Hampshire, the state Legislature controls redistricting, and the body’s majority Republicans are eyeing alterations to the boundary dividing the state’s two federal seats that could transform the eastern 1st Congressional District, a toss-up battleground, into reliably GOP territory.
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Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican mulling a challenge against Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, has veto power over the Legislature’s forthcoming map. And he is pledging to reject changes that smack of overt, partisan gerrymandering. “It has to pass the smell test,” Sununu said in an interview over the summer. “When you have lines crossing all over [the place] — no, we’re not doing any of that, we typically never have here in New Hampshire.”
Sununu is correct in that state lawmakers over the decades have tended not to mess too much with New Hampshire’s congressional lines.
The 1st Congressional District lately has been somewhat friendly to Republicans, with the 2nd Congressional District in recent years hospitable to Democrats. But both have typically had a battleground flavor about them. Democrats worry that is about to change, fearing neither Republicans in the New Hampshire Legislature, nor Sununu, will pass up an opportunity to create a new 1st Congressional District that is definitively red.
Stephen Stepanek, chairman of the New Hampshire GOP, said as much during a meeting of the state party committee in late January. Referring to the Republicans’ hold on the Legislature and governor’s mansion, which gives them control of the redistricting process, Stepanek told committee members that “I can stand here today and guarantee you that we will send a conservative Republican to Washington, D.C., as a congressperson in 2022.”
Democrats are taking his guarantee seriously.
“The people of New Hampshire deserve a map that gives them an opportunity to elect politicians that accurately represent the makeup of the state as a whole,” said Liz Wester, spokeswoman for All On The Line, a liberal group monitoring the redistricting process in the Granite State.
Meanwhile, the race against Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in the 1st Congressional District could attract outsize attention, as Republican Gail Huff Brown mulls a campaign. Huff Brown, a former television journalist, is the wife of former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican who took Washington by storm in 2010 with his victory in a special election to fill a seat left vacant by the death of Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy.
In 2012, Brown lost his bid for reelection to Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Two years later, after moving to New Hampshire, he mounted a challenge against Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, losing again. In 2017, former President Donald Trump appointed Brown as U.S. ambassador to New Zealand. Returned from that sojourn, Brown’s wife is considering a run for Congress.
“Like many Granite Staters, I am deeply concerned about the direction of this country. I’ve long believed in the importance of public service and flattered that I’ve been approached about continuing my service in a different role,” she told WMUR in a statement. “I will continue to listen to and learn from my neighbors, friends and family as I consider this opportunity.”
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Some Republican insiders believe Huff Brown could be a formidable candidate.
“Gail is an adult with a life of experience, the ability to raise some serious cash, and, through Scott, some star power and Trump linkage,” a GOP operative in New Hampshire said. “She has an interesting blend of attributes that could give her [candidacy] legs.”
