Our third election that we are profiling for 2019 is the mayoral race in Manchester, NH. Manchester like many of the locations we profile is a competitive political district which can elect Republicans or Democrats. In 2016, Hillary Clinton took 51% of the vote to Trump’s 44%, but the local municipal elections have been highly competitive between the parties.
From 2010 to 2018, former Republican state legislator Ted Gatsas served as the mayor of Manchester. Technically, the mayor’s race is a non-partisan race between the two highest vote getters in the non-partisan primary. However, in virtually every year, one of the two candidates is a Republican and one is a Democrat. In November 2017, Mayor Gatsas was defeated by a registered Democrat Joyce Craig. Craig had run and lost against Gatsas in 2015 by less than a 100 votes, but in 2017 — a strong year for Democrats nationwide– she prevailed by a wide margin of nearly 1500 votes.
In this year’s non partisan primary, the incumbent Democratic Mayor Joyce Craig won with 57% of the vote and will face the second place finisher, a former Republican state legislator named Victoria Sullivan who took 39% of the vote. Primary turnout was very low … only 14% of the registered voters turned out. The incumbent Democrat Craig appears to be the favorite, but we think the election bears watching. New Hampshire and Manchester is always a competitive demographic and had elected Gatsas for the four previous elections. Our expectation is that Craig will benefit from her incumbency and win again with a margin comparable to 2017, but it will be interesting to watch the margin. A margin much greater than 2017 would clearly be a good sign for Democrats. A very close race or an upset win by Victoria Sullivan would be a good sign for Republicans.
We will be watching closely on November 5th and sharing the results with you!
NewEnglandPolitics.com 