A barrage of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, primarily but not exclusively targeting transgender residents, may well be shut down or significantly slowed the Blue Wave that swept through the state’s house and senate in last Tuesday’s midterm elections.
And State Sen. Rebecca Perkins Kwoka, the first openly LGBTQ+ woman to serve in the chamber, is poised to become Senate President, according to an announcement by the Senate Democratic Caucus.
Also notably, the openly gay Republican state Rep. Joe Alexander, criticized for supporting anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, lost his bid for re-election.
Reports the Concord Monitor:
Republicans in the Granite State were expected to give up some ground in the midterm elections.
They hadn’t expected to give up their slate of seats in Bedford, a GOP stronghold. Or the Senate seat in the heart of the Lakes Region. Or to be blown out of the Executive Council. The current House Speaker, Sherman Packard of Londonderry, was unseated, as was state Rep. Ross Berry, the conservative architect of the school tax cap ballot initiative that drew Democrats’ ire. In the New Hampshire Blue Wave, down-ballot candidates took the brunt.
“When you watch a video of a tsunami, right, the first thing you think about is, ‘Oh, those poor souls on the beach who are just looking at this wave coming at them,’” said Dante Scala, a professor of Political Science at UNH. “In New Hampshire, those are state legislators.”
Former state GOP chair Chris Ager said it feels like the Tea Party midterms – but in the other direction.
“It looked like there was straight ticket voting against Republicans,” he said. “It’s not unprecedented at all, but it was more than what we expected…it’s kind of like their equivalent of 2010.”
While state Democrats exceeded expectations in state races – with projections for a low 290s seat majority in the 400-member House and a 15-seat majority among 24 Senators – they aren’t quite on track to pull the kind of dominant legislative position Republicans held in 2010, with GOP majorities 298 House seats and 19 Senate seats strong. Still, it remains the most sure-footed partisan clinch of the Legislature in years, and Democrats are projected to claim more seats in the New Hampshire House than ever before, knocking on the door of veto-proof majorities in both houses.
“To see this deep of a wave: Democrats sweeping in Bedford, winning six seats in Londonderry,” said Lucas Meyer, a Democratic strategist. “I mean, these are places where any political observer has never seen anything like this in a long time.”