Informed Analysis: The three moments that won Joyce Craig this week’s NH Governor’s debate

At this week’s gubernatorial debate, Joyce Craig forced the advantage on opponent Kelly Ayotte’s losing positions on economic, education, and housing issues, producing a surprisingly weak performance from the former Senator.

Here are the top three moments in the debate hosted by the Mt. Washington Valley Economic Council that pushed Craig over the edge.

“It’s clear to me and to others that Kelly Ayotte is saying anything she can to get elected”

The subject of abortion has never been a strong one for Kelly Ayotte, with a mile-long list of votes and actions taken to roll back women’s reproductive freedoms, both while she was in the Senate and out of the Senate.

She’s tried to spin her record away from the subject at every turn, and during the debate, Craig called out Ayotte’s dodging, accusing her of being dishonest with New Hampshire voters on both her record and her intentions around abortion rights, leading to an early clash that saw Ayotte expend much of her energy and focus on defending herself early in the debate.

“She’s going to be putting more money in her pocket while those costs are downshifted to our local communities, and we’ll see an increase in our property taxes.” 

Much of the opening of the debate surrounded a $160 million figure Ayotte has placed at the center of her campaign ads in the final weeks of the election, repeatedly claiming the sum — a number pulled from repeal of the Interest and Dividends tax — as what tax increase Democrats would levy broadly across all Granite Staters if they took power in Concord.

But Ayotte seemed unprepared for the strength of the pushback on the issue from Craig, who detailed — as we have here at the Granite Post — how repeal of the I&D tax has primarily benefited the passive investment outcomes of a small number of multi-millionaires in the state, while downshifting costs to property taxpayers across the state. Republicans have long downshifted costs to communities as they have held full control of the state government.

Ayotte was forced to defend her fuzzy math, and had to pointedly ignore barbs over how much she would personally save as a result of the tax break, which is estimated to be in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Joyce Craig also deftly forced Ayotte to defend her repeated attacks on the city of Manchester, driving her to halting, stuttering turnabout on how much she values the city she has spent so much of her campaign tearing down.

By the time the debate moved onto energy and environment issues, Ayotte’s answers had noticeably slowed, losing steam after having to repeatedly go on the defense.

“You’re not on the board of Blackstone?”

Like abortion, housing is another weak area for Ayotte given her record, and another area where Craig sniffed out the weakness and exploited it during the debate.

“As this state has been faced with a housing crisis, she actually has been making millions of dollars sitting on a corporate board for Blackstone, the largest corporate landlord in the entire nation,” Craig said 

The troubled private equity firm that has been blasted for their role driving up the cost of housing across the country. Ayotte was driven so far on the defense during this subject, at one point it seemed like she was denying even being involved with the firm, leading Craig to ask if she was denying being on the board and drawing a paycheck while simultaneously running for governor.