This Increment in State Legislatures: New Hampshire Secretary of State Race

Connoisseurs of state legislatures are well aware that New Hampshire has the largest legislature in the country (and one of the largest, proportionally, in the world), with a 400-member House of Representatives and a 24-member Senate. The NH House is a normal source of odd election and legislative news, with every election bringing in a cohort of inspiring or infuriating new members.

This unique legislative body could be viewed in action this week in a unique occurrence: a contested election for Secretary of State. Unlike most states that fill the office through popular election, New Hampshire’s Sec. of State is elected by a ballot of the legislature. The incumbent is (and, spoiler: remains) moderate Democrat William Gardner, who was first elected in 1976. After Gardner participated in President Trump’s voter fraud commission, fellow Democrat Colin Van Ostern announced a run against Gardner.

In my opinion, this campaign in theory was something similar to a parliamentary, or a campaign for Senate prior to the passage of the 17th Amendment; in that a candidate had to campaign indirectly for a position, attempting to secure the election of supporters in both primaries and in the general. Van Ostern is a former member of the Executive Council (another unique governmental body) and was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for Governor in 2016. He ran a very active campaign, outraising and outspending Gardner.  As a personal aside, I once met Van Ostern when he was a candidate for Executive Council.

The election was held on December 5th, and the first ballot was a vote of 208 (Gardner) to 207 (Van Ostern), with one write-in. It was ruled by the Speaker of the House that a count of 208 does not constitute a majority, and so a second vote was necessary. Gardner won on the second ballot with a count of 209 to 205. The election was held by secret ballot, perhaps because pundits and journalists would have had a field day dissecting the defections, abstentions, and betrayals inevitable in such a close result. Despite his registration as a Democrat, Republicans publicly backed Gardner (as they have in the past while controlling the legislature), due to either his support of the state’s early Presidential primary status or to his support of their bills on voter turnout. Like other local politicians in New Hampshire, Gardner has obtained some level of fame from his involvement in the New Hampshire Presidential primary process.

Democrats appear to have largely supported Van Ostern: a straw vote before the fact had him at 179 supporters, with only 23 for Gardner (and another 7 for former Representative Peter Sullivan of Manchester). However, some Democratic bigwigs and long-time incumbents in the state supported Gardner. Interestingly, Sullivan’s late candidacy was predicated on the idea that Van Ostern’s criticisms of Gardner were right, but that Van Ostern was bringing too much partisanship and money into the race (a claim of some conservatives as well). Though no comparison to other states was explicitly made, big-money partisanship is the norm in partisan popular elections, including those for Secretary of State. Enough of New Hampshire’s legislators may have been swayed by the appeals to traditionalism of the Gardner supporters.

This campaign and election may not have ended in a change in officeholder, but it was an effort in a seldom-contested arena that broke some ground and provided a lot of fodder for political scientists and wannabe-political scientists such as me. In the end, isn’t that what democracy is all about?