Citizen Count’s

Anna Brown

Anna Brown is director of research and analysis at the nonpartisan organization Citizens Count.

Anna Brown is director of research and analysis at Citizens Count, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that provides information to make political engagement easier. She’s also host of the “$100 Plus Mileage” podcast.

Q. What races are on the September 13th primary ballot, and what should voters know going in?

A. There’s races for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor, Executive Council, state Senate and House. In the 1st District U.S. House race, we have a big field of Republican candidates who are looking to run against Rep. Chris Pappas, and in the 2nd district we have several Republicans vying to run against Rep. Annie Kuster.

That race is interesting to me, because it’s becoming a bit of a proxy for Sununu versus Trump. You have candidate Bob Burns, who is a very strong supporter of Trump. Then you have Keene Mayor George Hansel who was endorsed by Sununu and is more moderate, not looking to increase abortion restrictions, very much focused on economic issues. We’ve seen some clashes between Sununu and Trump — what will happen on that level in New Hampshire?

In the Executive Council races, we have some interesting Republican matchups. In District 4, former Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas, who’s a current executive councilor, is facing a challenge from Terese Grinnell, who protested Executive Council meetings last year over the acceptance of federal vaccine-related funds. A similar race is happening in Nashua with Dave Wheeler versus Anne Copp, who actually resigned from the House of Representatives after moving from Derry and cited a lot of her concerns about election integrity and other positions that are very much associated with Donald Trump.

Wherever you’re looking, there’s that contrast among Republicans in particular, which is not to say that there aren’t interesting Democratic races, but I think that when we’re looking at the primary, those are some of the really contested races that we’re seeing.

Q. Let’s talk about the Citizens Count survey. How did you come up with the questions for the candidates?

A. The input process starts early in the spring, because we are trying to get a broad swath of input from people who follow us on social media, our newsletter subscribers, anyone from the public who wants to chime in and nonprofits that are in the advocacy space on both sides of the aisle. We also reach out to media partners, such as the Granite State News Collaborative.

We’re covering big top issues like gun laws and income taxes and minimum wage, but then we’re also getting into some newer, more specific New Hampshire issues. For example, the law that passed as part of the last state budget aimed at banning critical race theory in schools, and then also questions about fees for electric vehicles, or should there be a renewal of the renewable portfolio standard going to 2025? We tried to cover the gamut between well-known issues and then maybe some that are more nuanced.

Q. Have you noticed any trends in the responses so far?

A. Definitely. We’re seeing a movement in favor of marijuana legalization, for example, which we’ve seen that shifting in the House already for several years.

We did also ask about abortion this year and tried to break it down into more nuanced responses. We’re asking candidates, do you want to repeal the ban on abortion after 24 weeks? Do you want to secure a right to access abortion before 24 weeks, basically blocking future restrictions? Do you want to add future restrictions? If so, in the second trimester or in the first trimester? I’m seeing a lot of diversity among the opinions, particularly among the Republican side, but there’s a lot of nuance among the candidates.

Q. How can voters access the responses?

A. We post all of the survey responses as they come in on our website, citizenscount.org, and on our navigation bar there’s a link to elections. If you click there, you can either search by office or district or just select your town from a dropdown menu and that’ll pull up all of your candidates from the State House all the way up to the U.S. Senate. We are also sharing our survey responses with the Granite State News Collaborative and other media, for re-publication in print.

This article, based on an interview conducted on “The State We’re In” public affairs program, is being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.