Conservative Gen Z Republican Wins Primary in Key House Seat

A Gen Z former Trump White House staffer just made history last night. Republican Karoline Leavitt – who just turned 25 last month and became formally eligible to be seated as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives – won her primary for New Hampshire's First Congressional District Seat. This sets her up for a November showdown with incumbent Democrat Congressman Chis Pappas.

Leavitt beat out a number of candidates, including fellow Trump Admin alumnus and the 2020 GOP nominee for the NH-01 House seat – Matt Mowers. Mowers worked in the statement Department as a top aide to Secretary Mike Pompeo who endorsed him in the primary, as did the 45th President himself.

Still, Leavitt emerged victorious from the hotly contested primary after garnering 35 percent of the vote to Mower's 25 percent.

Although she worked in the Trump White House and was endorsed by a number of Trump's closest allies – including her old boss and former White House Press Secretary Kaleigh McEnany – the 45th President for some reason declined to endorse her in the primary and endorsed Mowers instead. He has however celebrated her win via a statement posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.

Another interesting moment in the primary was the division of endorsements from Elise Stefanik – House Republican Conference Chairwoman and Kevin McCarthy, House Republican Minority Leader. Stefanik endorsed Leavitt, who worked as her Communications Director after leaving the White House and has since issued a statement on Leavitt's primary victory.

McCarthy instead endorsed Mowers.

Now Leavitt will set her mind to tackling the task of flipping a seat that the Cook Political Report ranks as having a partisan voter index (PVI) of EVEN and an overall rating of “Toss-Up.”

Aside from the NH-01 race, the Granite State played host to a couple of other key races last night, including a five-way Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat.

New Hampshire is a key swing state and enjoys an elevated political status due to it being the host of the “First In The Nation” primaries in Presidential election years. 

Pro-Trump Senate candidate Don Bolduc also won his hotly contested primary.

New Hampshire's Republican Governor Chris Sununu — a moderate who enjoys a fair amount of popularity for a Republican governing a blue state and prevailed against three challengers in his own primary last night — stepped into the race with a last-minute endorsement of Charles (Chuck) Morse, the President of the New Hampshire State Senate.

Still, that wasn't enough to swing the race in Morse's favor. WMUR reported earlier this month that “Don Bolduc, a retired Army general, has been leading in the polls for the Republican nomination. Morse is making the case to voters that he has the experience for the job.” That polling was done before the debate last month and Sununu's endorsement but seems to have held true.

Bolduc has set himself up for a matchup with vulnerable incumbent Democrat Senator Maggie Hassan.

Our friends over at Townhall reported RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel's statement on the state of the Senate race, and other key ones in New Hampshire:

“Extreme Democrats like Maggie Hassan and [Representative] Chris Pappas have failed Granite Staters time and again by voting in lockstep with Biden's failed agenda of high taxes, open borders, and historic inflation. Our data-driven ground game is ready to turn out the vote, and New Hampshire is ready to re-elect Governor Sununu and finally send commonsense Republican leadership to Washington.”