David Boutin is taking another shot at running for his old state Senate seat.
“I run into people at the gas station, the grocery store, the barber shop, and they kept telling me over and over again that they hope I’ll run again,” the Hooksett Republican told the Monitor after announcing his 2018 campaign for the state Senate seat in District 16.
Boutin represented the district, which includes Bow, Dunbarton, Hooksett, Candia and Wards 1, 2, and 12 in Manchester, for years before deciding not to run for re-election in 2016.
Democrat Scott McGilvray narrowly won the seat, but his death last March precipitated a special election. Boutin jumped into the race, but lost the July special election by about 10 percentage points to Democratic Manchester Alderman Kevin Cavanaugh.
That contest was the most high profile of the State House special elections in 2017. Democrats took eight of those 10 showdowns, and also won big during November’s municipal elections. The strong showings in New Hampshire and across the country have Democrats energized for what they hope will be a big win in the 2018 elections.
“We sort of got caught up in this environment that kind of whipped across the country. I think it’s going to be significantly different in November,” Boutin said.
Boutin argued that having first-term Republican Gov. Chris Sununu at the top of the GOP ticket will be the game changer in November.
“At the top of our ticket we’ve got a governor who’s got a 62 percent approval rating. That’s going to play a key role in the elections here in 2018,” he said. “It’s going to be a very different election.”
Boutin said he started thinking about another campaign in late autumn, after he took some time off following the July 25 special election.
One of the top issues he tried to tackle during his final years in the state Senate were problems plaguing the state’s Division for Children, Youth and Families. Last year, an independent review found that the agency had too few staff members to respond to a growing number of child maltreatment reports and that it rarely substantiated reports of abuse.
Boutin currently serves as vice chairman of a commission tasked with choosing candidates to recommend to the governor to serve as a DCYF watchdog. That commission has been criticized by some Democratic state lawmakers for not making its recommendations public.
But Boutin told the Monitor the commission members received legal advice from the state attorney general to keep the process private.
“It’s up to the governor to decide if he wants to reveal those names or if he wants to wait until he decides who he wants to pick,” Boutin offered. “Now by the way, the governor is not obligated to choose one of the three candidates that we recommended to him. He could go outside of that and pick someone different.”
Boutin spoke with the Monitor one day after the state Senate passed along party lines a bill that would tighten New Hampshire’s voter eligibility laws. Boutin said he would have supported the measure.
He also backs the divisive school choice bill that passed the state House of Representatives on Wednesday. The legislation, which has Sununu’s support, creates education savings accounts that would allow some parents to use taxpayer funds to send their children to private schools. Democrats argue the measure would weaken public education.
“I believe that it offers an opportunity for school choice for parents,” Boutin explained. “My wife has been a teacher for 40 years in public schools in Manchester. This is not the way it has been portrayed by my friends on the other side of the aisle, that it’s taking away money from public schools.”
On two other major issues, Boutin said he supports extending the state’s Medicaid expansion program. Boutin backed the original program and said he favors the bipartisan state Senate plan to extend Medicaid expansion.
And he favors a bipartisan state Senate push for paid family leave.
“I think it makes good sense. It’s very pro-family,” he said. “I think family leave is a very good logical progression for us to go towards.”
If he wins the GOP primary, Boutin would face off in a rematch with Cavanaugh. But he says that’s not a top concern.
“Whenever I run, I run on my issues and what’s important to the people in the district. And I concern myself less with who my opponent is,” he said. “They’re going to do what they’re going to do.”