Jason Kander says he’s focused on next year’s midterm contests and “making sure we still hold elections.”
The former Missouri Secretary of State who this year founded and leads Let America Vote, a nonprofit group dedicated to increasing voter participation, on Saturday is co-headlining the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s Mid-Term Convention.
The trip by Kander will be his fifth stop in the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state this year, and the third this month alone.
Those visits, as well as stops in Iowa and other early primary and caucus states, and his increased visibility in pushing back against what many Democrats say are voter suppression efforts by Republican President Donald Trump, have made Kander a man in demand.
They’ve also fueled speculation that Kander, a former Army National Guard officer who narrowly lost last year’s U.S. Senate election in Missouri to incumbent Republican Roy Blunt, is seriously considering a bid for his party’s 2020 presidential nomination.
Kander says such talk is “flattering, but look, I’m really focused on making sure we still hold elections.”
“It’s really important that we stay focused on things like 2018 and that we stay focused for me on where we’re holding elections still. I really am pretty passionate about what I’m doing,” Kander told the Monitor on Tuesday, after he spoke at a protest rally outside the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, site of the second meeting of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Voter Integrity.
Kander energized the crowd, describing Trump’s claim that three to five million people voted illegally in last November’s election as “the biggest lie that a president has ever told.”
The commission’s goal, according to the president, is to increase voter trust in election results, but Kander charged that “the commission should not exist” because it’s mission “is about undermining faith in American democracy.”
“It’s a complete farce,” he added.
Many New Hampshire Republicans have long railed against the state’s same-day voter registration law, saying it allows Democrats to game the system. Earlier this year the GOP-dominated state legislature passed a bill tightening voting laws. That measure, SB3, was signed into law by Gov. Chris Sununu, the state’s first Republican governor in a dozen years.
In an interview, Kander foreshadowed his Saturday speech at the Democratic Party convention.
“I’m going to be talking about the fact that, unfortunately, New Hampshire has become ground zero in the fight against voter suppression, thanks to SB3, and thanks to the priorities clearly of Gov. Sununu.”
Kander says his group will target Granite State Republicans up for re-election next year who supported the new voting law, which has already been challenged in court.
“Whether it’s Gov. Sununu or Republican members of the legislature here, there are folks who think that there’s no consequence what-so-ever to support laws that make it harder to vote. And the mission of Let America Vote is to create political consequences for folks who commit voter suppression,” Kander explained.
“This is one of five states where we will be opening an office here in 2018 to make sure that folks who make it harder to vote find it a lot harder to get re-elected,” he added.
New Hampshire native and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey will also co-headline Saturday’s convention, which will be held at Manchester’s Memorial High School.
“She’s always led the fight nationwide about having state attorney generals take the Trump administration to court,” longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley said.
Also speaking at the convention will be the four members of state’s all-Democrat congressional delegation: Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan and Reps. Annie Kuster and Carol Shea-Porter.
“We’re obviously very excited to hear from our entire congressional delegation. It will be our first state convention since we won, first time in history, all four members of the delegation,” Buckley explained.
But he said the main mission of the event is grassroots organizing, adding that this is “our biennial organizing convention. This is where our trainings and workshops (take place). That’s really the focus of the convention.”
The convention also tees up the party’s 2018 efforts to win re-election for Kuster and Shea-Porter, and to try and win back the governor’s office, as well as majorities in the state Senate, state House, and Executive Council.
But 2017 is also on the agenda at the convention.
“Before we get to 2018, we have to get through 2017 and that’s why Joyce Craig, the Democratic candidate for mayor of Manchester, is one of our featured speakers at the convention,” Buckley said.
And serving as convention co-chairs are Democrats who won high profile State House elections this year. They are Sen. Kevin Cavanaugh, who won the only special election this year in the state Senate, and Edie DesMarais of Wolfeboro, the first Democrat to win there in nearly 100 years.