With an eye toward the economy, NH’s top candidates spend more outside of NH

Signs for gubernatorial candidates Kelley Ayotte, a Republican, and Cinde Warmington were placed in the grass outside the State Employees Association headquarters on North Main Street in Concord.

Signs for gubernatorial candidates Kelley Ayotte, a Republican, and Cinde Warmington were placed in the grass outside the State Employees Association headquarters on North Main Street in Concord. Geoff Forester

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

Monitor staff

Published: 09-07-2024 10:53 AM

In the bottom corner of campaign signs speckled on green front lawns, a white outline of the state is accompanied by the lettering “printed in New Hampshire.”

It’s a small marker that Keystone Press in Manchester puts on signs for races up and down the ballot – like the ones used by Tara Reardon in State Senate District 15 and the large banners that say “Colin Van Ostern for Congress” – letting anyone who looks close enough to know that the plastic piece of cardboard was made right here in the Granite State.

With the economy on the minds of voters, the Monitor analyzed the campaign finance reports of the leading candidates in the two top races to see how much of their multi-million dollar campaign chests were spent in the state.

In the two most expensive races in New Hampshire – the contest for the corner office and the Democratic primary for the 2nd Congressional District – each candidate spent more money out of state than in-state, primarily because of television advertising. Even though those ads are aired in-state, the money is sent to high-priced consulting firms almost exclusively located in Virginia.

The day-to-day management of a campaign – renting office space, postage, employee salaries – makes up most of the candidates’ Granite State spending.

Advertising aside, former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig, a Democrat running for governor, has spent the most total amount of money in New Hampshire and the highest percent – just over $500,000 on campaign staff salaries, buttons, t-shirts and yard signs. That total was about 40 percent of her $1.4 million spent.

Former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the frontrunner in the GOP primary for governor, spent a smaller proportion of her larger campaign cash in New Hampshire. Ayotte spent about $350,000 out of her $1.6 million, which amounts to 21 percent. She spent the most amount of her dollars in Virginia on consulting fees and online advertising.

The breakdown of in-state spending is not as clear for Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington and former Senate President Chuck Morse – who are seeking the Democratic and Republican nominations, respectively. Both candidates chose to file their expense reports on paper, opting to not use the state’s online filing software like Ayotte and Craig.

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The state’s system, which is voluntary to use for candidates, allows users to search through reports online – sorting money spent and money raised by individual contributors, causes and amounts.

Both candidates submitted printed-out copies of Excel spreadsheets of their reports and the Secretary of State’s office scanned and uploaded the files online. This means they are not searchable, sortable and in the cases of Morse’s sheets, mostly illegible.

Warmington is close to Craig in total spending – she has spent $2.7 million to Craig’s $2.6 million. Her campaign provided an online file of her expenses from June to September.

She spent approximately, $107,000 in New Hampshire – mostly on staff wages and rent, which is about a quarter of her total spending, according to the limited data for that timeframe.

On the Republican side, Morse has raised $1.47 million to Ayotte’s $7.2 million and spent nearly all of it, as of Sep. 4. However, Morse’s campaign did not make documents available prior to publication, making an analysis of his spending impossible.

Congressional races

In the Democratic contest to replace Congresswoman Annie Kuster, Maggie Goodlander has spent twice as much as Colin Van Ostern – $1.6 million to his nearly $900,000, as of Aug. 21. Since this is a federal race, spending reports aren’t as up to date as state races.

Outside of television, Goodlander’s top dollars landed in Virginia and Massachusetts – for consulting on digital strategy, research and text campaigns, merchant fees and printing campaign materials.

For Goodlander, staff salaries comprise half of her New Hampshire receipts, along with consulting on fundraising, printing materials, office rent and $5,000 to access voter files. She spent $100,000 or about 16 percent of her receipts here, not including advertising.

Van Ostern’s spending is similar. Half of his New Hampshire dollars, just over $46,000 went to fundraising consulting. The next largest sum was for salaries. He also spent $2,500 to access voter files. He spent about $95,000, or about 18 percent of his total here – including on those campaign signs made in Manchester.

Primary politics

In the three decades Dean Spiliotes, a professor at Southern New Hampshire University, has lived in the state, he’s watched the amount of money a candidate needs to run a campaign balloon, even in a state where 424 members are elected to the State House for a salary of $100 every two years.

“They’re no longer amateur events where somebody puts a little bit of their own cash into it,” he said. “They’re increasingly professionalized and increasingly involve raising substantial amounts of money in the state and also outside of the state.”

With the growing influence of, and dependence on, money in politics it makes discerning between local and out-of-state spending more convoluted for voters to take note, said Spiliotes.

“Now, everything is so integrated and difficult to figure out what’s in state, what’s out state, who are the key players. I think it’s become a bit more accepted, the reality of how money plays in politics,” he said. “Now, people don’t necessarily like it, but I don’t know if that kind of critique packs the punch that it once did.”

To Dante Scala, a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire, signs are more of an indication of a candidate’s name recognition ahead of election day than an indicator of out-of-state or in-state. As he’s driving around the state, he’s looking at quantity, placement and size.

“Primaries are tricky because voters are lacking the hints as to how to behave that they get in a general election,” he said. ” She’s a Democrat, so you’re going to vote for the Democrat, it’s a safe kind of shortcut. Well, voters don’t get those shortcuts in party primaries, so they have to rely on other things which makes it more challenging.”

While Scala imagines that most voters aren’t pouring over pages of campaign finance records – “you’d have to be very much in the weeds” – where candidates raise and spend money is one differentiating factor among candidates who are so similar.

Yet, the local advantage may hold more weight in New Hampshire, according to Spiliotes. In past elections, the governor’s race in the Granite State has differed in that candidates are less “ideologically sharp.” In the same year that Biden won New Hampshire, Gov. Chris Sununu sailed to re-election.

In the Granite State, choosing a candidate can depend more on leadership and likability rather than sharp policy points that other governors, namely Gregg Abbott in Texas, Glenn Youngkin in Virginia and Ron DeSantis in Florida put at the forefront of their campaigns.

“It always ends up being about who do people feel is the better steward of New Hampshire, so to speak. And that often cuts across ideological lines,” he said. “The whole dynamic around that race is something a little bit apart from your typical, predictable kind of partisan elections.”