CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — One of the most competitive gubernatorial races in the country has also become very personal.
None of the state’s 12 female governors is up for re-election, but five women are running as major party gubernatorial candidates in four states. Two of those are in New Hampshire, where Republican Kelly Ayotte and Democrat Joyce Craig are vying to succeed Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican who is not seeking a fifth two-year term.
While voters and candidates themselves say their gender is not an issue in a state that has historically elected women to top offices, it has influenced their approach to the issue of abortion and reproductive health care. Both candidates have produced television ads reporting miscarriages after doctor’s appointments where no fetal heartbeat was detected.
“I know the feeling when your dream is shattered and you think, ‘Wow, what if I can’t have a child?'” says Ayotte, a former U.S. senator and attorney general.
But while Ayotte’s ad focuses on reiterating support for in vitro fertilization, Craig’s promises broader protection of reproductive rights.
“I was able to terminate my pregnancy without hindrance,” says Craig, the former mayor of Manchester. “I’m running for governor because these decisions belong to women, not politicians.”
In Indiana, where Democrat Jennifer McCormick is the only woman in the race, she highlighted her gender as she criticized her Republican gubernatorial opponent, U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, for supporting her state’s near-total abortion ban.
“I’m the only person on this stage who’s been pregnant, I’m the only person on this stage who’s given birth, and I’m the only person on this stage who’s a mother,” she recently said in a debate. “I understand firsthand how complex pregnancy is. I trust women and I trust healthcare providers.”
But the “Trust Women” slogan comes with an asterisk in New Hampshire, where Craig often criticizes Ayotte’s support for a federal ban on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy and her role overseeing Justice Neil Gorsuch through his confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he became a member, highlights the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
“We can’t trust what she’s saying right now because she’s shown where she stands on the issue of reproductive freedom,” Craig said in an interview last week.
Ayotte insists she will veto any bill that further restricts abortion in New Hampshire, where the Republican majority made abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy illegal in 2021.
“I’m not going to change our law,” Ayotte said. “She can say all sorts of things about it, but I think I’ve made my position pretty clear.”
As for her trustworthiness, Ayotte stresses that New Hampshire voters sent her to the Senate and governors of both parties previously appointed her attorney general.
“I served this state,” she said. “I served the people of New Hampshire.”
As a senator, Ayotte was part of the nation’s first all-female congressional delegation, just one of New Hampshire’s notable achievements in electing women. It was also the first state to have a female governor, Senate President, and Speaker of the House at the same time, and the first state to have a female majority in the Senate. In 2008, Jeanne Shaheen became the country’s first woman to serve as both governor and U.S. senator. Senator Maggie Hassan came second after defeating Ayotte in 2016.
That track record makes New Hampshire an outlier, said Linda Fowler, a professor emeritus of government at Dartmouth College who has studied women in politics. She said research suggests voters have an easier time electing women as representatives because they view them as caring and good listeners, but view governors as CEOs and believe the job requires a more masculine approach.
Since there is no man in this race, Fowler says the most crucial thing will be voter turnout. Ayotte cleverly linked Craig to crime, homelessness and other “big city” ills in Manchester, she said, but the abortion issue had roiled Democrats across the board.
“This race is really going to be about mobilization and whether abortion will outweigh people’s distrust of our only major city,” Fowler said.
According to the Rutgers Center for American Women in Politics, 30 Democratic women and 19 Republican women have served as governors in 32 states, but never before have so many held office at the same time. Even if the three other women — McCormick in Indiana, Crystal Quade in Missouri and Esther Charlestin in Vermont — fail, the New Hampshire race means a recent record of 13 women serving as governor at the same time. And the number could rise as Minnesota Gov. Peggy Flanagan is poised to assume the state’s highest office if Gov. Tim Walz is elected vice president.
Despite the impending record break, both Ayotte and Craig said their gender was not discussed in the campaign, and in about a dozen interviews, voters told The Associated Press they barely noticed there were two women in the race.
Rachel Johnson, a Republican who met Ayotte at a highway rest area, said she didn’t know much about the candidate but planned to vote for her.
“Whoever is best for the job,” she said. “Gender has nothing to do with it.”
Victoria Hill, an independent voter from Gorham, shared that sentiment, although she is voting for Craig. After meeting the candidate at a guitar shop in Littleton, Hill praised Craig’s commitment to public education while criticizing Ayotte’s support for former President Donald Trump. Ayotte withdrew her support for Trump in 2016 because of his offensive comments about women, but says she is backing him now because his record in office was better than that of the Biden administration.
“That’s the problem I have – it just sways no matter which way the wind blows,” Hill said.
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Associated Press Writer Isabella Volmert contributed to this report.
