Midterm election results: Maggie Hassan holds onto seat in New Hampshire Senate race

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Hassan holds on to seat in key New Hampshire Senate race

Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) speaks during an election eve campaign event on Nov. 7 in Manchester, N.H. Photo: Scott Eisen/Getty Images Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) defeated Republican challenger Don Bolduc to secure a second term in the U.S. Senate. Why it matters: New Hampshire’s Senate race was among Republicans' best opportunities to pick up a seat this year, but Hassan dwarfed Bolduc in fundraising and the Republican candidate aligned himself with former President Trump in a state that Trump lost twice. Driving the news: Hassan, a former two-term governor, prevailed against Bolduc to win another six-year term after the race tightened in the last few weeks of the campaign. What happened: Hassan ran as a moderate Democrat and benefited from the timing of a competitive GOP primary, which fell less than two months before the general election.Bolduc, a retired Army general, was not the Republican establishment's first pick to challenge Hassan. The Mitch McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund spent millions trying to defeat him in the GOP primary.On the campaign trail, Hassan pointed to her accomplishments in the Senate involving bipartisan cooperation, such as the . The other side: Bolduc, who has embraced Trump's false 2020 election claims and ran on a platform centered on the border, guns and energy production, tried to move to the center.But he continued to stand by false claims he has made aboutPolls showed that Bolduc gained some ground in the final weeks of the campaign. The intrigue: agreed at a debate that the cap on income that is taxed to fund Social Security should be raised — which Republicans broadly reject. How we got here: Republican Gov. Chris Sununu was expected to be the likely nominee but announced last year that he wouldn't enter the race.Sununu, who’s been critical of Trump and election denialism in the GOP, backed state Senate President Chuck Morse in the primary, but he to Bolduc.

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