Democrat Maggie Goodlander, a former senior official within the Biden White Home and Justice Division, is on the verge of launching a main marketing campaign towards the hand-picked, would-be successor to Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H., based on three sources conversant in her planning.
The transfer, which may come as early as this week, guarantees to deliver nationwide and worldwide politics to the guts of a Home race in New Hampshire, at a time when President Joe Biden is making an attempt to maintain the state’s 4 electoral votes in his column.
Scott Merrick, an adviser to Goodlander, declined to verify or deny that she is going to run — however stated a call is coming quickly. Kuster introduced earlier this yr that she was retiring.
“Maggie is grateful for the encouragement she’s obtained from Granite Staters and will probably be making a call within the coming days,” Merrick stated.
Goodlander labored on home points within the federal authorities — on antitrust on the Division of Justice and on Biden’s “unity agenda” on the White Home — however the connection to international coverage comes by way of her marriage to nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan, who provides Biden counsel on hot-button points such because the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
However Goodlander’s path to Congress will not come with out obstacles, beginning along with her Democratic main opponent, Colin Van Ostern. The previous member of the state govt council has already been endorsed by Kuster and dozens of present and former native officers.
Van Ostern’s marketing campaign declined to remark for this story.
Whereas Goodlander’s resume within the Biden administration is formidable, she additionally beforehand labored as a senior advisor to the late Sens. John McCain, a Republican, and Joe Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-independent.
Although her multi-partisan resume would possibly assist in a probable aggressive basic election for the district, it may damage her within the Democratic main.
Plus, operatives within the state have raised questions on how lengthy its been since Goodlander truly lived and voted within the district. She’s now registered to vote in New Hampshire’s 1st District, which isn’t the one she’s planning to run in.
Kuster has held her seat for over ten years, nevertheless it’s nonetheless rated by the non-partisan Cook dinner Political Report with Amy Walter as aggressive, although “Probably Democratic.”
On the Republican facet, a number of candidates are vying for the GOP nomination within the congressional race, together with entrepreneur Vikram Mansharamani, who was the GOP’s nominee for Senate in 2022.
And although the state at massive is often thought-about solidly blue, New Hampshire’s impartial streak places it on the fringes of the presidential battleground as properly. In 2020, Biden received the state by simply over seven proportion factors.
Biden visited the Granite State in March, after shunning the state’s first-in-the-nation main, whereas former President Donald Trump visited the state a number of occasions forward of the GOP presidential main there.