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Fifteen of New Hampshire's one hundred State Representative districts have contested primaries on Tuesday, with five of them right in Manchester.
The day's biggest free for all takes place for the nomination in Hillsborough 17 with eleven filed candidates vying for eight slots, and only returning incumbents in Jane Bealieu, George Katsiantonis, and Joel Winters.
Hillsborough 17, consisting of Manchester's wards 10 through 12, comprises all of the demographically diverse West Side of the city. It is the only race of the day that has an excess of more than one candidate fighting for the Democratic Party nominations.
Elsewhere in Manchester, contested races are being held on the North Side in Ward 1 and 2 , as well as on the far east side of the city in Ward 6 , and the areas near Gill Stadium and Queen City Avenue in Ward 7 and 8. Each of these Wards contains its own State Rep District, Hillsborough 8,9,13,14 and 15 respectively.
Three races have seen procedural questions arise.
In Merrimack 11, consisting of all of Concord west of the Merrimack River as well as the area stretching from the State House to White Park to Cavalary Cemetary, Klee Dienes has dropped out of the race due to obligations in the National Guard.
In Coos 2, which stretches from Whitefield to Randolph up to Stark, saw tragedy with the untimely death of Bill Cowie by electrocution in upstate New York, Cowie filed along with three other candidates.
In Hillsborough 3, consisting of Peterborough, New Ipswich, Greenville and Sharon, one candidate has stated that he is no longer a part of the party which he seeks the nomination of. 9/11 conspiracy theorist Mike Casnerstated in the August 23rd edition of the Keene Sentinel that he does no longer considers himself a member of the Democratic Party, changing his affiliation to the Green Party after the filing deadline.
Casner went on the state that incumbents should be replaced due to "hush money" making them ineffective.
Other contested races around the state will be held in Portsmouth and Newington (Rockingham 16), Cornish, Grantham and Plainfield (Sullivan 1), Hopkinton, Warner and Webster (Merrimack 4), Bradford and Henniker (Merrimack 5), Amherst and Milford (Hillsborough 6) and the neighborhoods surrounding Crown Hill and Rivier College in Nashua making up the city's 7th ward (Hillsborough 25).
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Alright, let me get out of my reporter voice and get back into my politician voice. Apparently writing inverted pyramids are like riding bicycles.
Those are the Democratic State Rep primaries, but i'd be remiss if I did not mention the Republican State Rep primary in my own town of Merrimack, also known as Hillsborough 19.
All of the GOP incumbents except for Maureen Mooney will be running along with former selectmen in Dick Hinch and Tony Pellegrino, a former state rep from the Seacoast in Bob Dodge, and CEO Peter Jennings.
Any one of them is a formidable opponent, but unless there is a large turnout from the anti-tax base that unseated Hinch from the town's last board of Selectmen in 2006, my assumption based on signage, name recognition and what i've been hearing is that all six incumbents will win the nomination along with Hinch and Pellegrino.
So far I have seen one sign clearly on a lawn or business for Dodge and none for Jennings. To contrast, currently I have 61.
However, I may be biased since i've met the other eight candidates, and because when I told a good friend of mine that Peter Jennings was running, he asked me how and why a Canadian newscaster would return from the dead to run for State Representative in Merrimack, New Hampshire.
I am %99.99999 sure that all the candidates in town are indeed not deceased network anchors, but if that or anything else unusual happens from Merrimack, you'll hear it from me first.
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