NORTH HAMPTON, New Hampshire — Kamala Harris traveled to the “Live Free Or Die” state yesterday, the perfect place to deliver her message of freedom… and tax cuts for small businesses.
The New Hampshire event at women-owned Throwback Brewery in North Hampton was pulled together quickly and scheduled for the middle of a Wednesday afternoon. Still, over a thousand supporters turned up for the presidential candidate, including a large showing of younger people.
“I love Gen Z. I just love Gen Z,” said Harris later in her speech.
There were Boomers, too, including Catherine Johnson, 65, a self-described “campaign junkie” who claims she had traveled over 15,000 miles across the tiny state to attend over 200 political events in her lifetime. She recalled that in 2020, she saw then-senator Harris speak “in a lot of apple fields and farm stands.”
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The Boomer men also showed, most looking like variations on Ed Begley, Jr. I stopped one Begley impersonator who was wearing a cap with the name of his country club embroidered on the brim. I asked if he was there to support Harris.
“Yep,” he said, tersely.
I mentioned a recent poll that showed that when Harris replaced Biden, women voters shifted toward her while men shifted away. I asked what he thought might explain that shift.
“Well,” he said with a perfect New England pause, “I don’t believe polls from the get go.”
A moment later, a woman (his wife?) joined him and he used the interruption as a reason to escape further questioning.
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Maine State Representative Tiffany Roberts was enjoying some shaved ice when I approached. As chair of the Maine Legislature’s Innovation, Development, Economic Advancement and Business Committee, Roberts was eager to hear Harris lay out her policy.
“Trump doesn’t realize that New England has a strong tradition of small businesses: farmers, fishermen, local breweries,” she said. “It’s not like New York City. These businesses are actually for the people who live here.”
Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks with supporters.
Brian Snyder/Reuters
Roberts touted a new agreement between New England states that allowed credentialed workers to be accredited by other states with the same requirements. “If you’re a social worker or electrician in Massachusetts, you can become (snaps her fingers) a social worker or electrician in Maine,” she said.
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The New Hampshire congressional delegation kicked off the show at Wednesday’s rally. U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas spoke first, ushered in with the song, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” which suited the venue.
Senators Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen followed. Hassan referred to Trump’s proposals to raise tariffs as “a sales tax” and “a backwards idea from a backwards candidate.” Then she added, “We are not going back!,” knowing that the crowd from a state with no sales tax would pick up the chant.
Shaheen piled on, saying Trump had “the worst job record since Herbert Hoover.” (She did not explain that Hoover was the president during the Depression so her point may not have landed with the proper impact for the younger crowd.)
After Shaheen, there was a pause in the speakers. The temperature flirted with 80 degrees and campaign staffers handed out Gatorade while the brewery sold drinks with cutesy names like “Kamala Femininomenon” (lemonade) and “Coach” (unsweetened ice tea.)
“Hydrate,” Dover-based DJ Mam told the crowd. “And then make a plan to vote.”
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Throwback Brewery in North Hampton sold campaign-themed drinks during Wednesday’s rally.
Nell Scovell/The Daily Beast
Right on schedule, Harris took the stage to Beyoncé’s anthem “Freedom.” The vice president greeted the crowd with a big smile. Someone in the crowd must have mentioned her husband, prompting her to announce, “Doug sends his love to everyone as well.”
Then the tone changed. Harris had come to talk about freedom, but after a morning of tragedy, she was forced to stand outside the women’s-owned Throwback Brewery in North Hampton and talk about gun regulations.
Earlier in the day, a 14-year old student in Georgia had slaughtered two students and two teachers while leaving dozens more injured. So before Harris could talk about small businesses, she had to address the dead elephant in the room.
Harris spoke of the “senseless tragedy.” She recalled that as a child in California, her school had earthquake drills and fire drills and how wrong it is that today’s K through 12 students are subjected to active shooter drills.
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“It does not have to be this way,” she repeated several times.
Later in the speech, Harris clarified her position for the firearm-friendly New Hampshire crowd. “It is a false choice to say you’re either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyone’s guns away,” Harris said. “I’m in favor of the Second Amendment and I know we need reasonable gun safety laws in our country.”
Turning to the economy, Harris offered a list of proposals, including a tax deduction of up to $50,000 for startups, low-interest or no-interest loans, and reducing red tape to make it easier for small businesses to file taxes. She boasted about how the Biden administration had seen over 17 million applications for new businesses since taking office. Then she set a goal of seeing 25 million new applications by the end of her first term. She admitted that was “ambitious,” but, “I think we should admire ambition in each other.”
Vice President Kamala Harris approaches the stage at a rally in New Hampshire Wednesday, where over a thousand supporters turned up for the presidential candidate, including a large showing of younger people.
Brian Snyder
The crowd cheered loudly. They also cheered loudly when Harris called for a “fair tax” on billionaires. (According to Forbes magazine, New Hampshire only has one billionaire: Rick Cohen.)
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Still, nothing received bigger approval from the group than when Harris brought up protecting a woman’s right to determine her own health care. The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe is clearly the accelerant to Harris catching political fire. And it’s not just affecting women.
“I think people are underestimating the male vote on the issue of choice,” Johnson, 65, told the Daily Beast. “They don’t want their sisters, wives, and daughters being told what to do with their bodies.”
Johnson plans to vote for Harris for President and Republican Kelly Ayotte for governor. She suspects mainly will follow that same path and keep New Hampshire purple.
On the drive along Exeter Road, houses seemed to alternate between Trump and Harris signs. One block had two small houses that flanked a long driveway to a mansion. The two small homes had Harris/Walz signs. The people who lived up the long driveway were going with Trump.
Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris applauds as she attends a campaign stop in North Hampton, New Hampshire.
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Brian Snyder/Reuters
A group of Trump supporters—seven people and one dog—had gathered by the driveway that led to the brewery at noon as people filed in for the Harris speech. The group waved Trump flags and “Take America Back” banners. One had a sign that read: “Krazy Kommie Kamala. Another woman kept shouting into a megaphone, “Kamala, go home!”
The Trump contingent was gone by the time people filed out at four. I guess they went home.
A lack of public support for the US bombing campaign in Iran appears to be adding to the political headwinds facing Republicans in New Hampshire ahead of the midterm elections, according to data released Monday by the Saint Anselm College Survey Center.
An outright majority of registered voters in the state (59 percent) oppose the war — including 95 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of undeclared voters, and 20 percent of Republicans — according to a survey of 1,491 people conducted last week.
Those numbers, combined with domestic economic concerns, help to explain why Democrats appear to be gaining ground in New Hampshire, according to Neil Levesque, executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College.
“War and economic uncertainty tend to hurt the incumbent party,” he said.
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The survey found a notable shift in how voters responded when asked generally which party’s candidate would get their vote if the congressional elections were held now. Democrats outperformed Republicans by 8 percentage points (49 percent to 41 percent) on this “generic ballot” question in March, doubling the 4-point lead (46 percent to 42 percent) they had in November, when this survey was last conducted.
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These numbers come as Democrats hope to hang onto all four seats in New Hampshire’s congressional delegation, despite Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s impending retirement triggering wide open contests for two of those seats.
Representative Chris Pappas, who represents the 1st Congressional District, has a commanding lead in the Democratic primary for Shaheen’s seat in the Senate. Meanwhile, former US senators John E. Sununu and Scott Brown are competing for the Republican nomination.
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Sununu, who secured President Trump’s endorsement in early February, leads Brown by 21 percentage points (49 percent to 28 percent), according to the Saint Anselm survey. (A poll conducted in January by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center found Sununu with a similar lead in the GOP race.)
Hypothetical matchups in the Saint Anselm survey data suggest Pappas may be on track to beat either Sununu or Brown in the general election, though his current lead over Sununu (46 percent to 43 percent) is barely larger than the margin of sampling error (2.5 percentage points).
Although voter sentiment appears to be shifting to favor Democrats in federal races, first-term Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte still appears to have an early advantage in her 2026 bid for reelection.
In hypothetical matchups with the Democratic candidates, Ayotte is leading Cinde Warmington by 7 percentage points (46 percent to 39 percent), and she’s leading Jonathan Kiper by 14 points (45 percent to 31 percent), according to the Saint Anselm survey.
Steven Porter can be reached at steven.porter@globe.com. Follow him @reporterporter.
MANCHESTER, NH — The New Hampshire Lottery began distributing a new $30 scratch ticket to retailers statewide on Monday, introducing what it says is the largest scratch ticket jackpot in its history.
The game, called $30 $3,000,000 Cash Spectacular, offers three top prizes of $3 million and is the Granite State’s first $30 ticket in more than a decade.
To mark the launch, the lottery unveiled a 70-foot-tall banner of the new ticket on the side of the GYK building, the former R.G. Sullivan Cigar Factory Building, at 175 Canal St. in Manchester. The ticket has a limited run, according to the New Hampshire Lottery.
“We are always looking for new and exciting ways to connect with our players while delivering opportunities to win big,” Charlie McIntyre, the executive director of the New Hampshire Lottery, said. “Seeing this new $30 scratch ticket brought to life on such a large scale in downtown Manchester is a powerful reminder of the fun and anticipation our games create. We’re thrilled to offer our players the chance to win $3 million — the largest scratch ticket jackpot prize we have ever offered — and we look forward to the excitement this new ticket will bring.”
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The game uses a standard match-and-win format. According to the lottery, players win the prize shown if any of their numbers match any winning numbers. Players who reveal a 2X, 5X, 10X, 20X or 50X symbol win 2, 5, 10, 20 or 50 times the prize shown for that symbol.
The lottery said players who reveal “WINALL” win all 35 prizes. If a player reveals a roll of cash symbol, they automatically win the prize shown. The bonus portion of the ticket is played separately, according to the lottery.
Tickets may be purchased by anyone 18 or older at New Hampshire Lottery retailers across the state. The lottery said players can use its website to find the retailer nearest to them.
The rollout adds a new high-priced scratch option for New Hampshire players and gives retailers a new game to offer customers. The new ticket went into distribution Monday and is now available statewide, according to the New Hampshire Lottery.
Six people were taken to area hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries after a floor collapsed at a wedding venue in Tamworth, New Hampshire, around 4:30 p.m. Saturday, a spokesperson for the New Hampshire State Fire Marshal’s Office said.
The collapse happened while a wedding party of about 140 people were present, according to a joint release from the Tamworth Fire/Rescue Department and the State Fire Marshal’s Office. The office confirmed there were no fatalities and said late Saturday that four of the people treated at the hospital had already been released.
A phone call to the venue, the Preserve at Chocorua, was not answered. Tamworth, a town of about 2,800 people, is around 115 miles (185 kilometers) north of Concord, New Hampshire, near the western border of Maine. Phone calls to the MaineHealth Memorial Hospital went unanswered Saturday night.
The Fire Marshal’s Office said while more than 100 people gathered in a building called the Sap House at the venue, the floor buckled creating a 20-foot by 20-foot opening and sending about 70 people into the basement. Several people were trapped by the fallen beams and by farm equipment that had been stored on the lower floor.
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An office spokesperson said in a release late Saturday that before first responders arrived, other guests and staff helped some of the people who had fallen climb out of the basement with the aid of ladders, and were rendering first aid to people with minor injuries. It was unclear how many people were treated at the scene, and investigators are still determining the extent of injuries.
A photo from the Fire Marshal’s Office shows a chandelier and white bunting decorating the ceiling above the buckled floor boards, as well as stacked benches that had been used for seating for the wedding before the collapse.
A photo provided by the New Hampshire State Fire Marshal’s Office shows the buckled floor that collapsed Saturday, sending nearly 70 wedding guests into the basement of a building in Tamworth, N.H. Saturday, March 21, 2026. (New Hampshire State Fire Marshal’s Office via AP)
The Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating the collapse along with the Tamworth Fire/Rescue Department, a spokesperson said Saturday. Investigators believe the building “was over capacity” prior to the floor collapse, a spokesperson said in a release.
A first responder who arrived on scene shortly after 911 calls came in described half the floor of the building where the wedding ceremony was set to take place as having fallen into the basement over scanner traffic listened to on Broadcastify. He asked for more first responders to talk to witnesses, saying there were about 145 people present at the event. The responder also said they were carefully pulling people out of the building basement.
