New GOP ad fails to mention that featured 'mom of 4' is also New Hampshire party activist

A new ad paid for by the National Republican Senatorial Committee features a woman who says she’s a mother of four and a small-business owner attacking incumbent New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan for being too partisan. The ad makes no mention that the woman appearing in and narrating the ad, Christine Peters, is a long-time New Hampshire Republican activist.

In the 30-second spot, titled “Christine,” Peters says: “I’m a mom of four and I run our family-owned small business in Amherst. I used to hope Maggie Hassan would be independent minded. But instead she turned out to be a party-line politician. Maggie Hassan votes for Joe Biden’s liberal agenda 97% of the time. Now New Hampshire families are paying more for just about everything. Enough is enough. Let’s send Biden a message and vote Maggie Hassan out.”

According to a biography on the website of the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women, Peters is the group’s statewide events director, parliamentarian, and nominating committee chair, and previously served as the organization’s president and in a number of other roles.

In September, Peters ran unopposed to be a district delegate to the New Hampshire Republican State Convention.

Indeed, her partisan involvement is nothing new: A 2007 Los Angeles Times story about that year’s National Federation of Republican Women biennial conference in Palm Springs, California, quoted her among a number of attendees who criticized the personal life of Rudy Giuliani, who was at the time running for president.

A National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesperson did not immediately respond to an American Independent Foundation request for comment for this story. An attempt to reach Peters for comment through the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women was not immediately successful.

Peters is not the first Republican operative to be depicted in a campaign ad as an ordinary voter with no mention of their involvement in partisan politics. In 2020, the campaign of then-Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) ran an ad featuring her own former staffer lying about McSally’s position on Obamacare, and the campaign of then-Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) produced a spot featuring the glowing endorsement of a former official in the Republican Party of Georgia.

Beyond failing to be transparent about its star, the anti-Hassan ad also dishonestly blames the senator for ongoing inflation. Text on the screen notes, “U.S. inflation at new 40-year high” without acknowledging that experts say Democratic policies are not the main cause of inflation, instead saying that prices have risen in recent months due to supply chain issues stemming from the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Hassan voted in August for the Inflation Reduction Act, which will lower the costs of health care and clean energy while reducing the budget deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars.

It is unclear why Hassan’s voting record would be a surprise to voters: She was elected in 2016 on a promise to prioritize energy and the environment; affordable health care; LGBTQ equality; infrastructure; and protecting Social Security and Medicare.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.