In the most competitive gubernatorial race in the country this year, New Hampshire Democratic nominee and former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig is getting plenty of help from her party.

That helping hand from fellow Democrats could be crucial in Craig’s margin-of-error race right now with former U.S. senator and former state attorney general Kelly Ayotte, the Republican nominee.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign and the New Hampshire Democrats’ coordinated campaign are teaming up for what they tout as another “energized weekend of action,” this time ahead of Tuesday’s vice presidential debate in the White House race.

The Harris campaign said they are working with the state’s coordinated campaign to host over 130 events and “engage thousands of voters this weekend.” The events are designed not only to get-out-the-vote for Harris in her race with former President Donald Trump, but also to assist Craig and other down-ballot Democrats running in November’s elections.

The Harris campaign noted that it has over 120 staff members in 17 field offices across the state, in conjunction with the coordinated campaign, which gives it a major organizing advantage over the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, and the New Hampshire GOP when it to comes to Granite State ground game efforts in the closing weeks of the 2024 election.

One example – Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz, the wife of Harris’s running mate Gov. Tim Walz, teamed up with Craig and other Democrats on the New Hampshire ballot earlier this month for a campaign event in Manchester.

“Democrats in New Hampshire are focused on winning up and down the ballot,” Craig campaign manager Craig Brown told the Monitor. “We have a party that is united here because we’re focused on Granite Staters.”

The Craig campaign has received plenty of backing from not only the Harris campaign and the coordinated Democrats but also a massive infusion of support and resources from the Democratic Governors Association. The DGA and other Democratic groups shelled out over $10 million to date to run negative ads against Ayotte, which has coincided with drooping public opinion polling numbers for the former senator.

While the Ayotte campaign is getting plenty of similar assistance from the Republican Governors Association, it’s otherwise pretty much on its own, with little coordination between Ayotte’s team and the Trump campaign and the RNC’s combined effort.

The combined Trump campaign/RNC outreach effort has focused in New Hampshire on reaching out to low-propensity voters and getting them to the polls.

Two New Hampshire-based Republican consultants said that other than the RGA, Ayotte’s pretty much on her own when it comes to party help in the governor’s race.

Former longtime New Hampshire GOP chair and former longtime RNC member Steve Duprey told the Monitor that Ayotte is “running her own campaign…. That’s a smart way to run. Run on your own.”

Duprey, a longtime Ayotte adviser and supporter who’s a member of her finance team, said the GOP nominee doesn’t need much help.

“Between her own fundraising team and the RGA, she certainly has the resources to compete,” Duprey said.

Veteran political scientist Wayne Lesperance, president of the Henniker-based New England College, noted the organizational upper hand for state Democrats.

“In any very close election, campaigns look for every possible advantage. In New Hampshire’s gubernatorial election, one such possible advantage for Craig may just be the consistent success the state Democrats have in party organization and coordination,” Lesperance said. “Efforts at encouraging party loyalty up and down the ballot create internal coattails helping candidates lift one another up in the polls.”

“That advantage is much bigger than their GOP counterparts in fundraising, organizing town committees, campus Democrats, and get-out-the-vote efforts. Republicans have their own approach largely rooted in local control with a weaker state party,” he added.

Pence, Fetterman, headed to N.H.

Former Vice President Mike Pence spent plenty of time in New Hampshire in 2021, 2022, and last year, as he flirted with a White House run and then launched a GOP presidential campaign. But Pence’s White House bid failed to generate widespread support, and he dropped out of the race last autumn.

But Pence returns to New Hampshire on Oct. 31, to take part in Dartmouth College’s 2024 Election Speaker Series. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania is also giving an address, on Oct. 23.

The series, sponsored by the Nelson Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences and Dartmouth Dialogues, highlights that it is “bringing in 10 speakers who are policy leaders, public officials, and analysts from across the political spectrum to discuss the most pressing issues facing American democracy today.”