Speed Reads

all eyes on new hampshire

New Hampshire's GOP Senate primary race too close to call

It's still not clear which Republican candidate Maggie Hassan, New Hampshire's incumbent Democratic senator, will face in November.

While Hassan won the Democratic primary on Tuesday, it's still too close to call the Republican race. With an estimated 79 percent of precincts reporting, retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc leads Chuck Morse, president of the New Hampshire Senate, by 1,632 votes. Bolduc is a staunch conservative who has never held elected office, and campaigned on former President Donald Trump's false claims of election fraud in 2020 and vaccine conspiracy theories, The Associated Press reports.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R), who won his gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, endorsed Morse in the Senate race, calling him "the candidate to beat Sen. Hassan this November and the candidate Sen. Hassan is most afraid to face." Sununu has called Bolduc a conspiracy theorist and said he'd have a harder time winning the seat; Bolduc in response called Sununu "a Chinese communist sympathizer."

Republicans outside of New Hampshire had hoped Sununu would decide to run for Senate against Hassan, believing he had a strong chance of defeating her in November, but he chose to run for governor again instead. He will face off against the winner of Tuesday's Democratic primary, Tom Sherman.