Politics
It's a tight race in the battle to succeed popular swing state Republican governor
NEWFIELDS, N.H. — A new poll in New Hampshire, home to the only competitive gubernatorial election this year, indicates a close race in the battle to succeed popular Republican Gov. Chris Sununu.
And the results of the survey and another poll released in the Granite State earlier in the week suggest former President Trump’s standing in New Hampshire in the White House race may be a drag on down-ballot Republicans.
According to a University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll released Thursday, Democratic gubernatorial nominee and former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig holds a razor-thin 47%-46% edge over former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the Republican nominee.
A poll released earlier this week from the Saint Anselm College Survey Center also indicated a coin-flip race, with Ayotte holding a slight edge.
NEW HAMPSHIRE MAKES PRIMARY PICKS IN 2024 ELECTION
Former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the Republican gubernatorial nominee in New Hampshire, speaks with voters at the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival Sept. 7, 2024. (Kelly Ayotte campaign)
Ayotte, thanks to her six years in the Senate and her tenure as a state attorney general before her service on Capitol Hill, has far greater name identification than Craig and has a sizable campaign cash advantage over her rival.
But the new polls suggest Trump may be doing Ayotte no favors.
WHAT AYOTTE TOLD FOX NEWS ALONG THE NEW HAMPSHIRE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
“Kelly’s very popular, but I do think Trump’s a burden,” longtime Granite State-based GOP consultant and former state attorney general Tom Rath told Fox News.
Trump came within roughly 3,000 votes of carrying New Hampshire in his 2016 presidential election victory. But four years ago, President Biden topped Trump by over seven points in New Hampshire.
Former President Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, delivers remarks alongside supporters, campaign staff and family members during his primary night rally at the Sheraton Jan. 23, 2024, in Nashua, N.H. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The UNH poll indicates Trump is down by 11 points to Vice President Kamala Harris. And the Saint Anselm College survey points to an upper single-digit lead for Harris in New Hampshire.
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“If this were a straight-up election without the presidential race on it, I think Kelly would have a lead outside the margin of error,” argued Rath, who stayed unaffiliated in the 2024 Republican presidential primary race and served as a top adviser to Trump rival and then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich in the 2016 GOP nomination battle.
A New Hampshire-based Republican strategist told Fox News “Trump is definitely an anchor on Kelly and her campaign right now, and she’s the flagship.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, arrives to speak during a campaign stop at the Throwback Brewery in North Hampton, N.H., Sept. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
The strategist, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, noted that Ayotte’s “status as a flagship means everybody’s taking shots at her. There’s not a lot of evidence of activity in New Hampshire by the Trump campaign, so it’s really Kelly versus the world right now.”
And another Granite State-based Republican consultant also pointed to meager involvement and resources in New Hampshire coming from the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
“Kelly’s out fighting this thing all by herself. That’s not a good place to be. You need other people drawing fire,” said the consultant, who also asked for anonymity. “[Trump’s] not focusing on New Hampshire. His bad poll numbers and lack of enthusiasm is dragging the whole ticket down.”
Craig, who served three two-year terms steering the Granite State’s largest city, narrowly topped Cinde Warmington, the only Democrat on the state’s five-member Executive Council, to capture their party’s nomination in last week’s state primary.
Ayotte, a former state attorney general before winning election to the Senate in 2010, soundly defeated former New Hampshire Senate President Chuck Morse to win the GOP gubernatorial nomination.
Sununu, who decided against running for re-election this year after winning four straight two-year terms as New Hampshire governor (New Hampshire and neighboring Vermont are the only states in the nation that elect governors every two years) endorsed Ayotte this summer in her primary race.
And Ayotte pledges to continue the Sununu agenda if elected to succeed the popular GOP governor.
Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire is interviewed by Fox News Digital July 11, 2024, in Newfields, N.H. (Fox News/Paul Steinhauser)
Ayotte was a rising star in the Republican Party in 2016 with a burgeoning profile on national security as she was running for re-election.
But just ahead of the 2016 election, she withdrew her support for Trump over the “Access Hollywood” controversy, when Trump made crude comments about grabbing women without their consent.
“I cannot and will not support a candidate for president who brags about degrading and assaulting women,” Ayotte said at the time.
Ayotte lost re-election by a razor-thin margin of just over 1,000 votes to then-Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan.
Ayotte stayed neutral in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary, but she endorsed Trump in early March, right after he clinched the GOP nomination.
Rath, pointing to Ayotte’s backing of Trump, said “her position, which was to embrace him and not create space, I understand why she’s made it, and you take the consequences of it … if that’s the top of the ticket, and you’re the next level down, it’s really hard to get around that problem in a race.”
Also working against Ayotte is an avalanche of negative ads that have been running against her all summer, courtesy of national Democratic groups.
The attacks have helped to raise Ayotte’s negative ratings in both the UNH Survey Center and Saint Anselm College polls.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Navy Secretary John Phelan was fired on Wednesday after months of infighting with senior Pentagon leaders and disagreements over how to revive the Navy’s struggling shipbuilding program.
Mr. Phelan is leaving the Pentagon and the Trump administration effective immediately, wrote Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, in a terse statement.
In his role leading the Navy, Mr. Phelan had championed the “Golden Fleet,” a major investment in new ships including a “Trump-class” battleship. But Mr. Phelan’s leadership was marred by feuds with senior leaders in the Pentagon, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, Pentagon and congressional officials said.
Mr. Phelan is the first service secretary to leave the administration, though he is the second one to clash with the defense secretary. Mr. Hegseth also has butted heads with Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll over promotions and a host of other issues. Mr. Hegseth fired the Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, earlier this month.
The Navy secretary has no role overseeing deployed forces, and Mr. Phelan’s firing is not likely to have significant implications for the conduct of the Iran war or U.S. Navy operations to blockade Iranian ports or open the Strait of Hormuz. As the Navy’s top civilian leader, his main responsibility is to oversee the building of the future naval and Marine Corps force.
But the tumult could make it harder for the Navy to replenish its stock of Tomahawk missiles and high-end air defense systems, which have been in heavy use in Iran.
Tensions had been simmering for months between Mr. Phelan and his two bosses — Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Feinberg — over management style, personnel issues and other matters.
Mr. Feinberg, in particular, had grown increasingly dissatisfied with Mr. Phelan’s handling of the Navy’s major new shipbuilding initiative, and had been siphoning off responsibility for the project from him, said the congressional official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
Mr. Phelan, a White House appointee, also had a contentious relationship with his deputy, Under Secretary Hung Cao, who is more aligned with Mr. Hegseth, especially on some of the social and cultural battles that have defined the defense secretary’s tenure, the officials said.
A senior administration official said that Mr. Hegseth informed Mr. Phelan before the Pentagon’s official announcement that he and President Trump had decided that the Navy needed new leadership.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Phelan referred all questions on Wednesday evening to the Defense Department.
Last fall, Mr. Hegseth fired Mr. Phelan’s chief of staff, Jon Harrison, who had clashed with senior officials throughout the Pentagon. The unusual move highlighted the broader tensions between Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Phelan.
Still, the timing of Mr. Phelan’s firing caught some Pentagon and congressional officials off guard. On Wednesday, Mr. Phelan was making the rounds on Capitol Hill, talking to senators about his upcoming annual hearing with lawmakers to discuss the Navy’s budget request and other priorities.
“Secretary Phelan’s abrupt dismissal is troubling,” Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement Wednesday night. “In the midst of President Trump’s war of choice in Iran, at a moment when our naval forces are stretched thin across multiple theaters, this kind of disruption at the top sends the wrong signal to our sailors and Marines, to our allies, and to our adversaries.”
Mr. Phelan also had a close relationship with Mr. Trump. In December, Mr. Phelan appeared alongside Mr. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort to announce the “Golden Fleet” and the new class of battleships bearing Mr. Trump’s name.
“John Phelan is one of the most successful businessmen in the country — in our country,” Mr. Trump said. “He’s been a tremendous success.”
Before joining the Trump administration, Mr. Phelan ran a private investment fund based in Florida.
“He’s taken probably the largest salary cut in history, but he wanted to do it,” Mr. Trump said at the December press conference. “He wants to rebuild our Navy. And you needed that kind of a brain to do it properly.”
But Mr. Trump’s effusive praise masked deeper tensions with Mr. Phelan’s Pentagon bosses.
Bryan Clark, a naval analyst at the Hudson Institute, said that Mr. Phelan was “driving the Navy in a different direction” than what Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Feinberg wanted.
“He was championing initiatives like the battleship and frigate that don’t align with where the D.O.W. leadership is taking the military, which is toward submarines, stealth aircraft, unmanned systems and software-driven capabilities like electronic warfare and cyber,” Mr. Clark said in an email, using the abbreviation for Department of War, as the administration calls the Defense Department.
Mr. Phelan also clashed with Mr. Hegseth over personnel issues in the Navy and Marine Corps, a former senior military official said. Mr. Hegseth has directed service secretaries to scrub the social media accounts of general- and admiral-level promotion candidates to ensure they are not deemed too “woke” by Mr. Hegseth’s standards, the official said.
Maggie Haberman and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
Politics
Manhattan DA’s office employee charged with sexual abuse after alleged incident on Queens subway
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An analyst with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office was arrested Tuesday on allegations that he sexually abused a woman while off duty, police told Fox News Digital Wednesday.
Tauhid Dewan, 28, is accused of inappropriately touching a 40-year-old woman’s private area during a late-afternoon rush-hour subway ride in Queens, according to local outlet PIX11.
The victim was reportedly a random woman, the outlet added, citing sources who said she and the suspect were strangers.
A spokeswoman for the office told Fox News Digital that the staffer has since been suspended.
MAN ARRESTED IN NYC STRANGULATION DEATH OF WOMAN FOUND OUTSIDE TIMES SQUARE HOTEL
Tauhid Dewan, 28, was arrested in New York City Tuesday following allegations that the Manhattan DA staffer innapropriately touched a woman during a subway ride (LinkedIn)
According to the New York Police Department, Dewan was arrested around 5 p.m., possibly after returning from work.
PIX11 added that the arrest occurred minutes after the incident, which allegedly took place on a No. 7 train near the Junction Boulevard station.
He was subsequently arrested by the NYPD Transit Bureau and is facing multiple charges, including forcible touching on a bus or train, third-degree sexual abuse, and second-degree harassment involving physical contact.
He was also charged with acting in a manner injurious to a child under the age of 17, suggesting a minor may have been nearby and either witnessed the alleged conduct or was placed at risk by it.
ERIC SWALWELL FACES MANHATTAN SEX ASSAULT PROBE AFTER ENDING CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR CAMPAIGN AMID ALLEGATIONS
Tauhid Dewan is an employee of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which is led by DA Alvin Bragg. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Law enforcement sources said Dewan has no prior arrests, local outlets reported.
According to city records, Dewan has worked at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as a senior investigative analyst for nearly four years, since July 10, 2022.
People board a train at a subway station in New York City on Aug. 1, 2025. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)
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His arraignment in Queens Criminal Court was scheduled for Wednesday, according to state records.
SAN FRANCISCO — With the California governor’s race quickly approaching, six candidates will face off Wednesday evening in the first debate since former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race in the aftermath of sexual assault and misconduct allegations.
The debate takes place at a critical moment in the turbulent contest to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. Ballots will start landing in Californians’ mailboxes in less than two weeks, and voters are split by a crowded field of eight prominent candidates. The debate also takes place after former state Controller Betty Yee ended her campaign because of a lack of resources and support in the polls.
Two Republicans — Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton — and four Democrats — billionaire Tom Steyer, former Biden administration Secretary Xavier Becerra, former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan — will take the stage at Nexstar’s KRON4 studios in San Francisco. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, both Democrats, were not invited to participate because of their low polling numbers.
As the candidates strive to distinguish themselves in a crowded field, the debate could include fiery exchanges about the role of money in politics and potential heightened attacks on Becerra, who has surged in the polls since Swalwell dropped out. With the debate taking place on Earth Day, environmental issues are also likely to be raised.
The Wednesday night gathering is the first televised debate in the gubernatorial contest since early February. Last month, USC canceled a debate hours before it was set to begin over mounting criticism that its criteria excluded all major candidates of color.
The 7 p.m. debate is hosted by Nexstar and will be moderated by KTXL FOX40 anchor Nikki Laurenzo and KTLA anchor Frank Buckley. It can be viewed on KRON4 (San Francisco), KTLA5 (Los Angeles), KSWB/KUSI (San Diego), KTXL (Sacramento), KGET (Bakersfield) and KSEE (Fresno). NewsNation will also air the debate.
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