As Marci Stone saw the weeks pass by and the 2026 elections approaching with just one Democrat running for governor, she organized an online survey.
She was seeking interest for someone to challenge Cinde Warmington in a primary.
It was a Hail Mary, a last resort. For Stone, who chairs the Somersworth Democratic Committee, Warmington represents the old guard of the Democratic Party at a time when many across the country are calling for new leadership.
“Our establishment Democrats have not served us, and I personally view Cinde as one of the establishment Democrats,” said Stone, who identifies as progressive and spoke to the Monitor on her own behalf, not for her group. “That alone, for me, just showed me that the New Hampshire Democratic Party is not listening to its constituents, not listening to the chairs of the committees and is not really trying to help us change what has been Republican-controlled government in New Hampshire for over a decade.”
Stone is coming around to Warmington after having a candid conversation with her, but said she would’ve liked to see at least one qualified candidate sign up to run against her. Warmington is the de-facto Democratic nominee and faces an uphill battle for the corner office against incumbent Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte. The last day for candidates to sign up and get on the ballot was June 12.
Jon Kiper, who made a strong showing for an underdog in the 2024 Democratic primary, is running again, but this time as an Independent.
The odds in the governor’s race favor Ayotte, a former U.S. Senator and New Hampshire Attorney General. Democrats worry there’s “no way” Warmington can beat Ayotte, as the Somersworth committee wrote in its survey. Historically, New Hampshire governors who want a second term almost always get one.
Warmington, a former executive councilor who lives in Concord, sought to dispel that notion while filing for office at the State House. Ayotte has lower approval ratings than many of her predecessors in recent memory, Warmington said.
By comparison, Warmington said her campaign is “full of momentum and energy.”
Warmington previously ran for governor in 2024 but lost the Democratic primary to former Manchester mayor Joyce Craig by about 7,500 votes.
This time around, Warmington is focusing on affordability — a popular theme that has won Democrats success across the country over the past year. Her message centers on unseating Ayotte, who she casts as unwilling and unable to “stand up” to the president.
“I think, basically, we’re stuck with Donald Trump, but we can do something here,” Warmington said in an interview. “We’re not stuck with Kelly Ayotte, right, for two more years. We can actually make a difference here.”
Since jumping into the race in February, Warmington, a lawyer and former lobbyist, has received a lukewarm welcome from would-be supporters. The University of New Hampshire Survey Center’s most recent poll, from April, depicted her as “largely unknown.” Just 16% of state residents held a favorable opinion of Warmington at that time, while 22% held an unfavorable opinion. Forty-seven percent said they didn’t know enough about her to say one way or the other.
As the presumptive nominee, Warmington is working to strike a chord with voters.
“I think what probably is most different is the urgency that I feel about people and the concern that people have all around the state,” Warmington said. “People are worried. They are truly worried about how to make ends meet … It’s like an urgent situation here.”
Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire, described Warmington’s chances as “possible” but “less than 50-50.”
“Ayotte’s got very polarized numbers, you know, people divide along partisan lines,” Scala said. “That’s trouble, but I’m not convinced that Warmington is going to be able to overcome that either.”
Warmington’s welcome
Tim Smith’s feelings toward Warmington are neutral. The former Democratic state representative from Manchester doesn’t love parts of her past — like her work lobbying for opioid manufacturers Purdue Pharma, which was a sticking point during her campaign against Craig. Yet Smith agrees with her on most of the issues. He’s just not sure she can win.
“She comes across as a fairly safe candidate who’s not going to say or do anything that’s going to alienate anybody in particular,” Smith said, “But at the same time she’s a little bit too bland, and she’s not really bringing anything to the table that’s going to proactively motivate people to show up and say, ‘Yes, I am excited to vote for this person.'”
Joe Arthur, on the other hand, is all in on Warmington. He waited with enthusiasm in the halls of the State House last week alongside several dozen others to support her as she made her campaign official at the Secretary of State’s office.
After speaking with Warmington during her 2024 campaign, Arthur sees her as a genuine, caring person who respects voters and takes action on the issues that matter. (For him, that includes education and addiction treatment.) Waiting in the hallway, he clutched a plan he drafted for substance abuse recovery efforts that he hoped to share with the candidate.
“Cinde is dynamic. She has passion. She wants to make a positive change, and that, to me, is very, very important,” said Arthur, who’s from Manchester. “She doesn’t hide from problems, and she tackles problems that people don’t want to talk about.”
Centering affordability, Warmington said she wants to repeal education freedom accounts, which she calls the “school voucher scam,” invest more in federal funding matches for affordable housing and give more state aid to municipalities for school construction costs. She also wants a moratorium on data centers and has pledged to take on Trump more directly than Ayotte has, through lawsuits and other means.
Ayotte will seek to build on legislative wins. Filing for reelection last week, the governor touted her accomplishments for law enforcement — increasing benefits, tightening a “broken” bail system and cancer screenings for firefighters — as well as regulatory changes for housing and money put toward mental health.
She has attacked Warmington for her past lobbying for the opioid industry and harkened back to her previous campaign strategy, arguing a Democrat will take New Hampshire the way of its southern neighbor.
“Philosophically, we are very different,” Ayotte said. “She would take us in a direction of higher taxes, less freedom and less opportunity — much more the Massachusetts way.”
Building the bench
Stone’s gripes with Warmington being the presumptive nominee aren’t personal but rather a symptom of what she sees as a recurring problem for Democrats in New Hampshire — a lack of strong candidates who are ready to take on higher office.
For that, she blames the New Hampshire Democratic Party. The leaders there, she said, need to “get their heads out of their asses.”
“We’ve had two years to build this bench, and we know that we need fresh blood. You can see it all over the nation,” Stone said.
A few other names had surfaced as potential candidates. Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern, for example, released a statement on the day Warmington launched her campaign, saying the stakes were “too high to risk losing this race” and urged Democrats to “look to the future.”
A week later, he made another statement saying, “a primary would divide attention when the people of New Hampshire need results.”
Smith said he would’ve liked to see a primary of at least two or three candidates.
“What is the point of having a representative government where, if people don’t have a menu of choices to choose from, then the person who comes out of the primary isn’t necessarily the consensus pick,” Smith said. “They’re not actually representing the will of the voters.”
The state party chairman, Ray Buckley, argued his organization does a great deal to support Democrats through outreach, local committees and its annual state convention. But he said he can’t “force anyone” to run.
“We make do with what people decide,” Buckley said. “Running for office is a huge sacrifice.”
The party focuses primarily on congressional seats and the governor’s race, while down-ballot legislative races are handled by other caucuses and organizations.
Stone, however, sees those efforts as disingenuous. The state convention highlights “establishment” Democrats, like Jeanne Shaheen and Chris Pappas, without giving enough time to new faces, she said.
Stone places Warmington in the same crowd as others who have held power for a long time. The state party, she said, doesn’t make room for new faces.
Buckley pointed to the crowded field of liberals vying to represent the first congressional district as Pappas runs for a seat in the U.S. Senate.
“We don’t tell anyone that they cannot run and … we’ll work with folks as they are,” Buckley said. “Where were these people for the past year and a half, while Cinde was thinking about running? Nobody was stepping forward. And certainly, knowing that it was likely that she was going to run again, it would be foolhardy for us to then encourage somebody to run only to then lose in a primary.”
‘I felt hopeful’
As a result of Stone’s survey, Warmington said she reached out to her for a conversation. About a dozen people gathered on a recent Saturday, outlining their concerns to Warmington and pressing her on her past lobbying work.
The group agreed to keep the details of their conversation private, but Stone said she walked away from it believing they could “sway the vote” if people continued to ask Warmington hard questions. “I felt hopeful,” Stone said.
“I think the biggest thing was just talking to her about meeting us where we are and not being an untouchable,” Stone said. “Having the conversations with your voters, not just a bunch of people who already love you.”
Warmington said she’s ready to listen and wants a chance to have those discussions.
“I think that when people actually don’t put labels on people but actually talk, you find the areas that you’re equally passionate about, that you care about, what you agree on, what you might disagree on,” Warmington said.
“I’m happy to discuss whatever is on people’s minds,” she added. “It makes for good government if you have a governor who’s actually listening to the people.”
Stone isn’t ready to throw her full-throated support behind Warmington just yet, but she sees potential if the candidate embarks on direct conversations and can “just be a human being.”
“I think I would feel comfortable supporting her,” if that’s the case, Stone said. “I will also say that if Cinde is the only other person on the ticket, the option would be to just not vote, and not voting for Cinde is a vote for Kelly Ayotte.”
