Kelly Ayotte Closes Out the Primary with Another Extremist Joining Her Ranks
Kelly Ayotte Closes Out the Primary with Another Extremist Joining Her Ranks
Candidate for governor Kelly Ayotte didn’t let the end of the primary go by without squeezing in one more endorsement from a notorious extremist. On Sunday, Jeremy Kauffman, leader of New Hampshire’s Free State, announced his support of Kelly Ayotte in the GOP primary, specifically citing Ayotte’s role as “Gorsuch’s choice to shepherd him through the Supreme Court nominations.”
Kauffman is known for his “incendiary rhetoric,” including a tweet joking that he and Kelly Ayotte discussed “which progressives from New Hampshire should be deported first,” as well as a tweet where he defended his use of the n-word.
Kauffman joins a long list of extremists lining up behind Kelly Ayotte throughout a messy yearlong GOP primary that saw both candidates racing to court the most extreme fringes of their party, including:
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Republican state Rep. Jon Stone, who “threatened to kill fellow police officers in a shooting spree, and murder his chief after raping the chief’s wife and children, all while he was already under scrutiny for his inappropriate relationship with a teen girl.”
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Republican State Rep. Jess Edwards, who went viral for voting against raising the age to marry in New Hampshire because, he claims, 16-year-olds are “ripe” and “fertile.”
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The New England White Network, a white supremacist hate group that cited her anti-immigrant and anti-Massachusetts rhetoric as reason to support her campaign, claiming “White Nationalists in New Hampshire look forward to voting for her.”
“Kelly Ayotte couldn’t let the primary go by without scoring one last endorsement from an extremist – this time, from one who has threatened deportations of his political opponents and regularly uses racist, violent, and extreme rhetoric,” said DGA States Press Secretary Emma O’Brien. “If the campaign Kelly Ayotte is running leads to extremists like Kauffman and the New England White Network lining up behind her, she’s making clear to Granite Staters that they can’t – and shouldn’t – trust her.”
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