New Hampshire GOP Senate candidate touts endorsements from secessionist state lawmakers

Several state legislators who backed efforts to secede from the United States or dissolve the state government have endorsed Don Bolduc, a Republican Senate candidate in New Hampshire.

Bolduc is one of several GOP candidates seeking the party’s nomination for Senate in the Sept. 13 primary. The winner will face Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) in November.

On July 26, Bolduc — a retired Army brigadier general and failed 2020 Senate candidate — released a list of 41 Republican state representatives endorsing his candidacy. This amounts to about one-fifth of the 206 current members of the New Hampshire House Republican Caucus.

In a press release, he praised the lawmakers as “true patriots” committed to the nation:

As I’ve campaigned and held over 25 town halls throughout the state, I’ve been lucky enough to be joined by some of the Granite State’s great local representatives along the way. I’m honored to earn the support and trust of these true patriots who believe, like I do, our greatest days are ahead, and together we can build back American Strength.

Six of Bolduc’s endorsers — Reps. Max Abramson, Dustin Dodge, Dennis Green, Raymond Howard, Diane Kelley, and Paul Terry — backed a proposed state constitutional amendment to provide “that the state peaceably declares independence from the United States and proceeds as a sovereign nation.”

Those six were among just 13 “no” votes as 323 of their colleagues successfully moved to kill the amendment by deeming it “inexpedient to legislate.”

Dodge, Green, and Howard also signed on as co-sponsors of the secession legislation.

In December 2020, Howard and three others on Bolduc’s endorsement list — Reps. José Cambrils, Dave Testerman, and Scott Wallace — reportedly co-authored a letter calling for “termination of the state” of New Hampshire’s government based on “fraud” in the 2020 election and declaring it “is, and Right ought to be a Free and Independent State as defined by Part I, Bill of Rights, Article VII.”

Their “Declaration of Independence” was signed by six state representatives in total and 31 other activists.

A Bolduc spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry for this story.

His endorsers’ pro-secession position is outside the mainstream. A June SurveyUSA poll found that 29% of New Hampshire adults would prefer the state “govern itself as an independent country,” while 58% would not.

Some of the other state legislators backing Bolduc have come under bipartisan criticism in the past for sharing bigoted messages online.

Rep. Dawn Johnson faced criticism and calls to step down in December 2020 after she shared an antisemitic story and cartoon from the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website accusing Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp of conspiring with Jews to rig the election. She later apologized but refused to resign.

In October 2021, Rep. Ken Weyler stepped down from his committee assignments, but not his state House seat, after sending colleagues a 52-page anti-vaccine manifesto that included anti-Catholic conspiracy theories. Among these were a baseless claim of a secret Pope and an accusation that church leaders are Satanists.

In September 2018, an image shared on Rep. Harry Bean’s Facebook page reportedly showed Hillary Clinton and her campaign vice chair Huma Abedin with nooses, suggesting that the two should be hanged. Bean claimed to be unaware of the image a year later and told a local news outlet that his account had been hacked.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.