Op-Ed: 100 Days

A week ago, for love of his party and country, President Biden selflessly and patriotically ended his reelection campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the next President of the United States. The decision to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders represented a difficult but profoundly American moment – we love Joe Biden and thank him for his lifetime of service to our country. With this choice, he once again put the American people and our country above everything else.

Kamala Harris is one of the most qualified candidates in history. She served as a seasoned prosecutor, California’s Attorney General, a United States Senator, and as Vice President. Simply put, she is ready for this moment – and here in New Hampshire and across the country, we are more than ready to support her. 

From the ground up, our party swiftly coalesced around Vice President Harris and her positive vision for the future, where our democracy is strengthened, our reproductive freedoms are protected and every person has the opportunity to not just get by, but get ahead. Kamala Harris now has endorsements from our entire Congressional delegation, all 34 of NH’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention, every prominent Democrat and groups and organizations representing Granite Staters of every age and all walks of life. In the days since, energy has been off the charts: Democrats have raised more than $250 million, bringing in more than 100,000 new volunteers, and signed up a 280% increase in volunteers. 

In the Granite State, we’re set up to win. We have opened 16 field offices across the state – compare this to our Republican friends, who have opened just one. We have hired more than 100 determined staffers who have been out in the field to spread the Democratic message and organize in their communities. 

We are making incredible progress – by protecting women’s fundamental freedom to make their own reproductive health care decisions, lowering costs for hardworking Granite Staters, defending the rights of our LGBTQ+ community, investing in quality public education, and increasing access to affordable housing and childcare so our children can afford to live and thrive in New Hampshire. 

Republicans, on the other hand, have used their state House and Senate majorities to push an extreme agenda that divides us, by trying to enact a 6-week abortion ban, relentlessly attacking LGBTQ+ Granite Staters, weakening public education, reducing state investments in public schools, and making wealthy corporations richer while hardworking families foot the bill. 

And just look at Donald Trump’s extreme Project 2025 agenda, which would roll back Americans’ rights and freedoms, hurt the middle class, and raise costs for families. Project 2025 guts checks and balances to give Trump unchecked power to pass his extreme agenda, bans abortion nationwide, and ends health care protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Trump’s conservative Supreme Court majority has already given him a blank check to do virtually whatever he wants as president. If he wins, there is no question Trump will use it to push this extreme agenda. 

In this year’s race for governor, the NHGOP has recruited a field of candidates that is further to the right than any in recent memory. It includes former U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte, who was voted out of office in 2016 after just one term. That year, which was the last time she shared a ballot with Donald Trump, voters saw her for what she was – a typical politician who would say whatever she thought was needed to further her political prospects. This year, Ayotte is taking the same approach – devoid of convictions and driven by ambition rather than values, which is why she’s tried to disguise her deeply unpopular and dangerous record on reproductive rights, refused to condemn extremist supporters of hers like Jon Stone, and ducked debates in an attempt to seem less extreme on the issues that matter most to Granite Staters. 

If Republicans hold these majorities and successfully elect one of their extreme candidates to the corner office, the policies pushed in Concord will be even more out-of-step with Granite Staters than what we’ve already seen in recent years. 

We don’t know where we’ll be 100 days from now. We don’t know what the polls will look like, or what the pundits will be saying, and frankly we don’t care. 

What we do know is that Trump and Republicans’ extreme Project 2025 agenda is terrifying and it’s not welcome here. But we also know that there is work we can and must do every single day between now and then to win these crucial races. We can organize. We can fundraise. We can tell our friends and family about the race for the White House between a prosecutor who has delivered for us and will continue to and the felon whose agenda attacks our freedoms, our democracy, and our economy. That’s the way we’ll win this. 

Whatever we do and however we get there, 100 days from now, we should be looking around as polls close knowing that we’ve done all we can to win. Not just for Kamala Harris, but for every single race up and down the ticket. We can send a simple, clear message to Donald Trump, JD Vance, and the extreme New Hampshire Republicans who want to rule over us with their regressive, dangerous policies: we’re not going back. Only forward.