Follow New Hampshire primary election results as they come in here.
New Hampshire will elect a female governor for the third time in November after former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte and former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig won their respective primaries Tuesday.
The governor's office is an open seat for the first time since 2016 thanks to Republican Gov. Chris Sununu's decision against seeking a fifth two-year term.
Though six candidates were competing in the Republican primary, the race largely was between Ayotte and former state Senate President Chuck Morse, while on the Democratic side, Craig had the most competition from Cinde Warmington, a member of the governor's Executive Council.
New Hampshire has elected two female governors, both of whom are now in the U.S. Senate — Democrats Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan. But Ayotte, who was New Hampshire's first female attorney general, said she is more interested in following in Sununu's footsteps.
"Over the last eight years under Gov. Sununu's leadership, this state has been rocking it," she told supporters in Manchester. "And this election is about making sure New Hampshire remains that way."
Craig served on the Manchester school board and board of aldermen before being elected as the city's first female mayor in 2017. She said leading the state's largest city for three terms gives her the experience to be governor, though critics blamed her for its ongoing struggles with homelessness and crime.
"I wanted to give Joyce Craig a shot at it because of her background," said Robert Norton, a Democrat and retired bibliographer from Concord. Warmington, he said, might be a little too ensconced in state government. "Maybe Joyce Craig will have slightly different ways to approach it."
After five years as attorney general, Ayotte served one term in the U.S. Senate before narrowly losing her seat to Hassan in 2016. Since leaving Washington, she has served on several corporate and nonprofit boards.
She focused much of her campaign stoking anti-Massachusetts sentiment with her "Don't Mass it up" slogan, leaning less on the traditional anti-tax rhetoric and more on crime and immigration.
In contrast to its first-in-the-nation presidential primary, New Hampshire is among the last states to hold state-level primary elections, leaving the winners just eight weeks to woo voters before Nov. 5.
As in the governor's race, there was no incumbent running in the 2nd Congressional District, where U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster is retiring after six terms. The seat has not been open since 2010.
Former White House aide Maggie Goodlander won the Democratic primary for that seat, defeating former Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern, who previously ran for governor and secretary of state and had been endorsed by Kuster.
Goodlander, who is married to President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, grew up in Nashua and recently moved back there from Washington. She worked in the Justice Department as a top antitrust official and as counsel to Attorney General Merrick Garland before moving to the White House chief of staff’s office earlier this year.
Throughout the campaign, the candidates criticized each others' pasts. Van Ostern repeatedly brought up Goodlander's work for the late Sen. John McCain and other Republicans, while she pointed out his work at a venture capital firm.
Alex Streeter, 43, a Democrat, said he was torn but ended up voting for Goodlander.
"I'm receptive to the argument that she's kind of carpet-bagging," said Streeter, of Concord, an engineer. "At the same time I know that nothing happens in Washington, D.C., without knowing people and having connections, and I think that in this case, that’s going to be valuable."
In the Republican 2nd District primary, second-time candidate Lily Tang Williams defeated a dozen opponents to finish first this time.
A native of China who became a U.S. citizen, Tang Williams calls herself the embodiment of the American Dream. She said she wants to go to Congress to keep that dream alive and to tackle inflation, the border crisis and the weaponization of government.
In the 1st Congressional District, U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas won the Democratic primary as he seeks a fourth term, defeating Kevin Rondeau, who ran in the Republican primary two years ago before switching parties.
Pappas, who considers himself a pragmatic voice in Washington, has said he expects immigration and abortion rights to be the top issues in the general election. He said the Republican primary candidates did little more than express devotion to former President Donald Trump and regurgitate anti-choice talking points.
His seat flipped five times in seven election cycles before he won his first term in 2018.
The GOP 1st District contest featured seven candidates, including former state Sen. Russell Prescott, Manchester Alderman Joseph Kelly Lavasseur and business executives Hollie Noveletsky, Chris Bright and Walter McFarlane.
Associated Press Writer Kathy McCormack contributed to this report.
