Democrat Becky Whitley launches bid for congressional seat
A contest has officially emerged for the Democratic nomination in New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District, where six-term Representative Annie M. Kuster is not seeking reelection.
State Senator Becky Whitley of Hopkinton, who had previously confirmed her interest in the race, announced the formal launch of her campaign on Sunday.
“I think that we need people focused on and experienced in delivering actual solutions to lower costs for families, to protect reproductive freedom — and I’ve done that,” Whitley told The Boston Globe. “I want to bring that solutions-oriented approach that I’ve always used under the dome in Concord, and I want to bring that to D.C.”
Whitley is the second Democratic candidate in the race. She is up against former gubernatorial nominee Colin Van Ostern, and there is still plenty of time for other contenders to step forward.
Kuster has already endorsed Van Ostern as her preferred successor. He was her campaign manager in 2010 and later served two terms on New Hampshire’s five-member Executive Council before his unsuccessful 2016 bid for governor. She said he has “the energy, intellect, experience, and temperament to take on our biggest challenges in Congress.”
Van Ostern has rolled out a long list of other endorsements and reported notable fund-raising numbers as he seeks to quickly establish his dominance in the Democratic primary.
Whitley, who is serving her second two-year term in the New Hampshire Senate, said Van Ostern has done great work for New Hampshire.
“The biggest difference,” she said, “is that I have really been in the trenches for the past four years as a policy maker.”
Whitley said her constituents have expressed appreciation for both her lawmaking accomplishments and her “lived experience as a working mother,” and she views those as two sides of the same coin. Some of her proudest accomplishments in Concord include securing a $60 million investment in child care as part of last year’s budget talks, plus the passage of a so-called “MOMnibus bill” with a variety of policies to help mothers.
“Our state really does have this proud tradition of sending strong women to Congress,” she added, “and I think that means a lot to a lot of people, and it means a lot to me. I really do want to carry on that tradition.”
Whitley, an attorney, said she wants to fight for a federal law to protect reproductive health care. That includes abortion, in vitro fertilization, birth control, equitable access to maternal health care, and more, she said. She rejected the notion that lawmakers should be banning abortion after a set number of weeks into a pregnancy.
“What is viable in one woman’s pregnancy might be very different for another woman,” she said. “That’s why trying to find hard-and-fast lines created by politicians is dangerous, because it’s not realistic for what pregnancy is actually like.”
Whitley said she believes there is a crisis at the southern US border, so Congress should be considering solutions to make it harder for people to come into this country illegally. At the same time, those who have established their lives, families, and careers here should have a pathway to citizenship, she said.
Whitley criticized former president Donald J. Trump “and his far-right allies” for their failure to support a recent bipartisan border security deal, and she warned that Trump has promised a cruel campaign of family separation and mass deportations if he wins another term in the White House.
“We can’t allow fear-mongering and hate to dominate the conversation because that only paves the way for dehumanization and for our immigrant communities to be targeted for hate and violence,” she said.
In the Republican primary, several candidates have stepped forward as well. They include Vikram Mansharamani, a businessman from Lincoln who finished fourth in the GOP’s 2022 primary for US Senate, and Lily Tang Williams of Weare, who finished third in the GOP’s 2022 primary for the 2nd Congressional District.