WASHINGTON _ Chris Pappas, a member of New Hampshire's executive council, has won the Democratic nomination for the state's swing 1st District, defeating a better-funded candidate who only recently moved there.
Pappas starts the general election as the slight favorite to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter. If he were to win, he would be the first openly gay representative from the Granite State.
With 23 percent of precincts reporting, Pappas led an 11-way Democratic field with 56 percent of the vote when The Associated Press called the race. Marine veteran Maura Sullivan was in second with 26 percent. Levi Sanders, the son of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, trailed in sixth place with 2 percent. He didn't have his father's endorsement, struggled to raise money and didn't live in the district.
Sullivan had raised the most money and benefited from support from EMILY's List, but Pappas had much deeper ties to the district, as well as the backing of three out of the four members of the state's all-female congressional delegation. (Shea-Porter backed her former chief of staff and campaign manager Naomi Andrews, who was in fourth place with 5 percent of the vote.)
The 1st District is one of 12 currently held by a Democrat that President Donald Trump carried in 2016. Shea-Porter and former GOP Rep. Frank Guinta traded the seat back and forth for the past four cycles. But for the first time in over a decade, neither ran this year. Shea-Porter announced her retirement last fall.
State and national Democrats had long been interested in Pappas, whom they attempted to recruit after Shea-Porter's 2014 loss. His family has owned a popular Manchester diner for over 100 years. Pappas considered running in 2016 but ultimately deferred to the congresswoman.
With the backing of advocacy group End Citizens United, he ran on getting money out of politics. "I'm the only candidate in this race pledging that the majority of my campaign donors live right here in New Hampshire," Pappas said in a recent spot.
That was an implicit attack on Sullivan, who raised more money from out of state than any other candidate in the country, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. His mailers also called attention to the fact that she'd raised $54,000 from Bain Capital executives.
Besides her out-of-state fundraising, Sullivan faced a series of negative headlines, beginning with her residency. A former assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs and senior Pentagon official in the Obama administration, she moved to the state in 2017, only after considering running for Congress in two districts in her native Illinois. Recent local headlines also highlighted her failure to vote in the past two midterm elections and the 2016 presidential primary.
Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race Tilts Democratic.
