Tulsi Gabbard to stump for GOP Senate candidate Don Bolduc in NH

(The Center Square) – Fresh off her pledge to leave the Democratic Party, former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is planning a trip to New Hampshire to stump for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Don Bolduc.

Bolduc said Thursday that Gabbard, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, will be visiting the Granite State to speak to voters about his challenge to incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections.

He said he and Gabbard "don't agree on every issue" but she shares his view that "the status quo is broken."

"Tulsi is a fellow change agent and an independent-minded outsider willing to speak truth to power," Bolduc said in a release. "I am going to spend every day between now and Election Day building a wide coalition of supporters that includes Republicans, independents and even disaffected Democrats."

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Bolduc said Democrats are "ignoring" what he described as the three most important issues in the upcoming midterm elections: "inflation, inflation, and inflation."

"People are choosing between heating and eating, they're not being listened to, and fear and uncertainty and control is what they see," he told Fox News on Thursday. "They feel that they have lost their ability for self-governance."

The New Hampshire Democratic Party dismissed news that Gabbard will be coming to the state to campaign for the GOP candidate. Hassan has held leads in most polls.

"Tulsi Gabbard is a Vladimir Putin apologist who has pushed conspiracy theories and stood with dangerous tyrants over the United States," the party said in a statement. 'By campaigning with a pro-Putin, extreme conspiracy theorist like Gabbard, Don Bolduc is making only more clear how out of step he is with NH.”

The announcement follows Gabbard's announcement earlier this week that she is leaving the Democratic Party over disagreements on Washington policies and thorny social issues.

"I can no longer remain in today's Democratic party," Gabbard said in a podcast. "It's now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers ... driven by cowardly wokeness."

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Bolduc, a retired U.S. Army brigadier general, narrowly edged out New Hampshire Senate President Chuck Morse, a moderate, in the Sept. 13 state primary to win the GOP nomination.

Hassan is a former New Hampshire governor who defeated Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte in a narrow race in 2016 to win the seat. She is seeking another four-year term by highlighting Bolduc's support for former Republican President Donald Trump's divisive policies and claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has rated the U.S. Senate seat as "lean Democrat" in the upcoming general election.

Despite that, National Republican and Democratic groups have poured tens of millions of dollars into the general election race, with control of Congress in the balance, and more spending is expected ahead of the general election.

This story was produced by The Center Square, a project of the Franklin News Foundation.