The Trump-endorsed Republican won his primary with the president’s backing. Now, a super PAC supporting Stefany Shaheen is running a 30-second ad built around his own words about Trump’s policies.
Anthony DiLorenzo, the Republican candidate for the high-profile New Hampshire 1st Congressional District race, has spent a lot of energy during the first week of the general election attempting to put space between himself and President Donald Trump, who has endorsed him in the race.
A new TV ad from a group backing his Democratic opponent, Stefany Shaheen, is looking to bring that relationship into focus.
The 30-second spot, titled “Differently,” comes from New Leadership PAC. It opens on footage of DiLorenzo’s $11 million island mansion in Portsmouth.
“From his mansion on his private island, Anthony DiLorenzo sees things differently,” the narrator says.
DiLorenzo repeatedly appears in a clip from a WMUR interview stating, “I believe the president’s policies have been effective.”
Trump endorsed DiLorenzo in July, and the Portsmouth car dealer and developer won the Sept. 8 primary with about 51% of the vote.
DiLorenzo, like many other New Hampshire Republicans, has struggled to navigate his relationship with Trump in a local political climate increasingly hostile to the president.
In a video circulating on social media, DiLorenzo is seen in a combative exchange with former Portsmouth Mayor Peter Weeks, trying to spin Trump’s endorsement as not relevant to his politics.
DiLorenzo has put nearly $2 million of his own money into the race by early September after loaning his campaign more than $1.6 million through June. Given his track record of deep-pocketed self-funding in the race along with Republicans outraising Democrats this cycle, he is all but certain to outspend Shaheen, who trailed in fundraising through the primary.
At Monday’s New Hampshire Republican Party unity breakfast in Concord, DiLorenzo took a shot at Rep. Chris Pappas, the Democratic nominee for US Senate and a co-owner of the Puritan Backroom, his family’s Manchester restaurant.
John Sununu, Pappas’ opponent in the Senate race, “has the pleasure of running against a busboy,” DiLorenzo said, as quoted by the Union Leader’s Kevin Landrigan.
Dean Spiliotes, a highly respected political scientist and civic scholar at Southern New Hampshire University, responded on social media saying the remark was a major misstep for DiLorenzo.
“Calling Pappas a ‘busboy’ is essentially mocking the American Dream, in which a hard-working immigrant family builds a successful business where family members work, in order to send future generations on to college (including Harvard) and careers.”
Trump’s job approval in New Hampshire fell to 37% in the July Granite State Poll, with 62% disapproving. The Cook Political Report rates the 1st District as “Likely Democratic.”
