State Senate leadership, bill requests, recounts, and more: Tracking the Election Day ripples

The State House dome, and the statue of Gen. John Stark, beneath partly cloudy skies on Nov. 11, 2024.

The State House dome, and the statue of Gen. John Stark, beneath partly cloudy skies on Nov. 11, 2024. DANA WORMALD—New Hampshire Bulletin

By CLAIRE SULLIVAN and ETHAN DeWITT

New Hampshire Bulletin

Published: 11-12-2024 11:11 AM

A week past Election Day, a clearer picture has emerged of legislative priorities, voter turnout, and results ranging from Executive Council seats to a proposed constitutional amendment.

Both parties – Republicans with bolstered control and Democrats losing seats in both chambers – have also begun to make their picks to lead them in the next legislative session.

Sen. Sharon Carson, a Londonderry Republican, was chosen unanimously by Senate Republicans to take over as Senate president from retiring Wolfeboro Sen. Jeb Bradley, according to a Friday news release from the Senate Republicans. 

In a statement, Bradley, who has led the Senate since 2022, said the Senate president needs to have “a steady hand and common sense” – and that Carson was “the perfect choice.”

The body will formally elect its leader during “Organization Day” on Dec. 4. Carson, who was promoted from majority leader, is set to take the helm with an expanded majority for Republicans in the chamber, with the party bringing its advantage to 16-8 after picking up two seats from Democrats. 

“We live in the greatest state in the nation and this is a historic office that many great Granite State leaders have had the privilege of sitting in,” Carson said in a statement. “I will never lose sight of that.” 

Carson was first elected to the Senate in 2008 and will soon begin her ninth term in the chamber. She is an adjunct history and political science professor at Nashua Community College, according to her Senate biography. 

Sen. Tim Lang, a Sanbornton Republican, said in a statement that the Republicans have a “strong mandate … to continue down the path of low taxes, reducing government regulations and fiscally sound government.”

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On the other side of the aisle, Portsmouth Sen. Rebecca Perkins Kwoka, a lawyer, was chosen as the next Senate Democratic leader by a unanimous vote of her caucus, according to a Friday release from the state Democratic Party. She will replace Manchester Sen. Donna Soucy, who after six terms in the Senate was knocked out by Republican Victoria Sullivan, a former state representative.

Perkins Kwoka said the caucus would focus on “fighting for policies that increase affordable housing and child care, lower energy costs, and protect the fundamental rights and freedoms we hold dear.” She also said Democrats were “prepared to serve as a wall against what is coming from Republicans at the state and federal level.”

The House will also hold elections for House speaker on Organization Day, with Republicans expected to prevail. In that race, Rep. Len Turcotte, a Barrington Republican, is challenging Speaker Sherman Packard, a Londonderry Republican.

As the dust settles from Election Day, here are other important outcomes. 

Ballot measure falls

New Hampshire voters narrowly rejected a constitutional amendment that would have increased the mandatory retirement age for state judges from 70 to 75.

About 65.6 percent of those who answered the question on their ballot were in favor of raising the age, according to totals from the Secretary of State’s Office, falling just short of the two-thirds majority needed for it to pass. 

Many voters didn’t weigh in at all: 138,636 “under voted,” essentially meaning they left the question blank. 

The ballot question had passed the House, 321-27, and the Senate, 22-1. 

A familiar Executive Council divide

In the Executive Council, Karen Liot Hill kept up a tradition of being the lone Democrat on the five-member body, winning the District 2 seat previously held by Cinde Warmington.

Liot Hill, the former mayor of Lebanon and a current Lebanon city councilor, beat Republican Kim Strathdee by about 14 percentage points, following a long line of Democrats who have held the safe seat, including Warmington, Andru Volinsky, and Colin Van Ostern. Those three have also all run unsuccessful campaigns for governor.

Democrats were hoping to win seats in at least two other districts in order to flip the current 4-1 Republican advantage into a 3-2 Democratic advantage. But their other candidates did not fare well.

Jon Morgan, a former state senator, failed to unseat Republican Janet Stevens in District 3 after Stevens won by about 10 points. And Melanie Levesque, another former Democratic state senator, fell nine points behind the Republican incumbent David Wheeler in District 5.

Meanwhile, in District 4, an open seat after Republican Ted Gatsas announced he wasn’t running again, Democrat Jim O’Connell lost to John Stephen, the Republican former commissioner of the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Republican Joe Kenney comfortably held onto his North Country seat in District 1, beating Emmett Soldati by about 10 percentage points. 

Big-time turnout

More Granite Staters than ever before made their voices heard in this election.

A record-breaking 833,023 voters cast ballots, according to totals from the Secretary of State’s Office. That total trumps a high last set in 2020, when 814,499 residents voted. 

About 11.9 percent of votes this year were through absentee ballots, a total of 99,356. On Election Day, 733,667 voters showed up to the polls. New Hampshire is one of few states without early voting and has only limited excuses for absentee ballots, but residents still vote at greater rates than most of the nation.

Voters exceeded even the high expectations of Secretary of State David Scanlan, who had predicted before Election Day that the state would achieve record turnout with 824,000 residents casting ballots. 

Scanlan said Election Day is a “social event” in New Hampshire.

“The whole election and campaign process reaches the climax on that day,” Scanlan said ahead of the election. “And you know, voters want to be a part of that, and that’s why we have such high turnout.”

10 recounts on tap

While initial results show Republicans taking 222 seats in the House to Democrats’ 178, the Secretary of State’s Office will oversee 10 recounts in the coming week.

Unlike in 2022, when the House was very narrowly divided, the recounts cannot change control of the House. But they could slightly affect the margins. 

In one case, an incumbent Democrat is seeking to hold onto her seat. Rep. Linda Tanner is seeking a recount in Sullivan District 5, after she was ousted by just 14 votes, or 0.42 percent.

Recount efforts that could benefit Republicans include Hillsborough District 17, where Republican Ben Prescott lost by just 28 votes, or 0.38 percent; Hillsborough District 24, where Dennis Demars lost by 27 votes or 0.74 percent; Grafton District 7, where Jon Gablinske lost by 28 votes; Merrimack District 8, where Natalie Wells was 57 votes short; and Strafford District 4, where Republican Rep. Kurt Wuelper is trying to reverse his loss by just 16 votes, or 0.06 percent

Democrats have one pickup opportunity, too: In Hillsborough District 18, Democrat Juliet Smith was six votes away – 0.07 percent – from winning a seat. 

Some recounts are more of a long shot. In one, Grafton District 9 Republican Kevin Howard lost by 72 votes – 2.84 percent of the vote. Democrat Patricia Turner is challenging her 134 vote loss in Strafford District 5, which amounts to a 4.68 percent loss. And Republican Daniel Furman lost in Strafford District 13 by 223 votes, or 7.66 percentage points.

According to state law, if a candidate loses by more than 1 percent, the cost of the recount is free only if they are successful in overturning the results. Candidates within 1 percent do not need to pay for a recount. 

The recounts will be held from Tuesday, Nov. 12, to Monday, Nov. 18, at the State Archives Building in Concord; a schedule of recounts can be found at the Secretary of State’s Office (sos.nh.gov). 

About those bill requests

The filing period for legislative service requests, or LSRs, in the House is ongoing – House representatives have until Nov. 22 to submit proposals.

Those proposals serve as drafts for what the lawmakers want to change in the statute. The drafts are taken in by the Office of Legislative Services – a nonpartisan team of lawyers. OLS staff then convert the request into a formal draft bill that interacts with the appropriate statutes. 

The lawmaker then has the opportunity to review the final draft bill and decide whether they still want to sponsor it. If they sign off, the LSR becomes a bill and is introduced by the speaker and assigned to a committee in early January. 

It is unusual for those who were elected to the House for the first time last week to file LSRs so early; typically first-term representatives wait a year to get acclimated to their committees and will submit LSRs in their second year. But freshmen representatives are still eligible to submit LSRs this month if they choose.

What about LSRs that were submitted earlier this fall by lawmakers who lost their reelection? Those may be transferred to a lawmaker that did win their election, such as a co-sponsor, to keep the bills moving forward. If they are not transferred, they do not move ahead.

So far, 186 LSRs have been filed, all from the House. But there is likely to be a post-election deluge. In typical years, lawmakers file between 800 and 1,000 bill requests. 

Lawmakers in the Senate have more time to file their LSRs – typically until the end of December, though the chamber has not announced its filing deadlines in the calendar.

Senators also have a special tool not available to House representatives: They can file LSRs “confidentially,” meaning they are hidden from the public until the start of the session in January.