Independent New Hampshire Journalism · Northfield, NHCorrection and update, Sept. 22, 2026, 9:48 a.m. EDT: This overview, published March 7, 2026, said Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern had “strongly hinted at a run” for governor. He had announced on Feb. 26, 2026 that he would not run, WMUR reported. That passage is corrected. The race has also changed since publication. Jon Kiper left the Democratic primary to run as an independent, then ended his campaign in August 2026 after collecting about 500 of the 3,000 signatures needed to reach the ballot, NHPR reported. In the Sept. 8, 2026 primary, Gov. Kelly Ayotte won the Republican nomination with about 92% of the vote over Shaun Fife and Robert Wayne McClory, and Cinde Warmington, the only Democrat on the ballot, won the Democratic nomination with about 96%, according to Citizens Count. The general election is Nov. 3, 2026. Time references are changed to dates. Personal details about private individuals were removed.
New Hampshire's two-year gubernatorial cycle means the campaign trail never really goes cold in the Granite State. With the September 8, 2026 primary ahead and the general election set for November 3, three candidates had staked their claim to the governor's office by early March 2026, and they could hardly be more different from one another. Here is what to know about the Republican incumbent and the two Democrats who were then running to unseat her.
Kelly Ayotte (R) — The Incumbent
Kelly Ayotte is one of the most recognizable names in New Hampshire politics, and she's built a resume to match.
Born and raised in Nashua, Ayotte worked her way through school — her first job was bussing tables at a restaurant in Meredith — before earning a political science degree from Penn State and a law degree from Villanova. She clerked for the New Hampshire Supreme Court, spent time in private practice, and then moved into the state's Attorney General office as a prosecutor, eventually becoming chief of the Homicide Prosecution Unit.
In 2004, Governor Craig Benson appointed her as New Hampshire's first female Attorney General. She was later reappointed twice — notably by Democratic Governor John Lynch, a sign of her bipartisan credibility at the time. One of her most high-profile cases was the prosecution of the killer of Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs, which resulted in a death penalty conviction.
Ayotte won a U.S. Senate seat in 2010, defeating Democrat Paul Hodes with 60% of the vote. She served one term in Washington, where she was ranked among the most bipartisan members of the Senate. She lost her 2016 reelection bid to Maggie Hassan by just over 1,000 votes — one of the closest Senate races in the country that year — in part due to fallout from her complicated relationship with Donald Trump during that campaign cycle.
After leaving the Senate, Ayotte moved into the private sector and sat on several major corporate boards, including BAE Systems (New Hampshire's largest manufacturing employer), Caterpillar, and News Corp. When Chris Sununu announced he wouldn't seek a fifth term, Ayotte jumped in and won the 2024 governor's race, defeating Democrat Joyce Craig by about 9 points.
Now serving as the 83rd Governor of New Hampshire, Ayotte has positioned herself as continuing the "Sununu path" — fiscally conservative governance with no income or sales tax. Her first year in office was defined in part by the tricky political balance of keeping her distance from President Trump without directly confronting him, a tightrope that events in early 2026, including a scrapped DHS plan to build an ICE detention warehouse in Merrimack (Granite State Report coverage), made harder.
Ayotte had not formally declared her reelection bid when this overview was published. She ran, and she won the Sept. 8, 2026 Republican primary with about 92% of the vote, according to Citizens Count. Her campaign had raised more than $2.1 million, with $1.4 million cash on hand as of late 2025, and UNH polling showed her favored for reelection.
Cinde Warmington (D) — The Healthcare Attorney
Cinde Warmington is the most credentialed Democrat in the primary field and represents the party establishment's best bet against Ayotte — though she comes with baggage.
Warmington, 68, holds degrees from UMass Dartmouth (BS in medical technology), the University of Texas at Arlington (MBA), and UNH School of Law (JD). Her career spans four decades in healthcare, beginning as a lab technician at Lakes Region General Hospital in Laconia. She moved through hospital management positions before attending law school and becoming a healthcare attorney at Shaheen & Gordon, where she eventually became a partner and chair of the Health Care Practice Group.
In 2020, Warmington won a seat on New Hampshire's Executive Council representing District 2, defeating Republican Jim Beard. She was reelected in 2022 with 60% of the vote. On the Council, she positioned herself as a check on Republican overreach, defending state contracts with Planned Parenthood and pushing to expand affordable housing and childcare services.
Warmington ran for governor in 2024 but lost the Democratic primary to Joyce Craig, finishing about 7,000 votes behind. Craig then went on to lose to Ayotte in the general. In February 2026, Warmington announced she's running again, framing her campaign around affordability — property taxes, groceries, housing, and electricity costs that she says Ayotte has failed to address.
Her biggest vulnerability is well-known. Earlier in her career, Warmington lobbied on behalf of Purdue Pharma, the company at the center of the nation's opioid crisis. In 2002, she appeared before the New Hampshire legislature and defended OxyContin. Republicans have hammered her relentlessly on this point, and her primary opponent Jon Kiper has piled on as well, criticizing her ties to the opioid industry. Warmington's supporters counter that her advocacy work has since been focused on expanding substance use disorder treatment and mental health access — and that the attacks are a "cheap shot" taken out of context.
Regardless, the Purdue connection will follow her throughout this campaign, and her ability to neutralize it will likely determine whether she can consolidate Democratic support.
Jon Kiper (D) — The Working-Class Populist
If Ayotte is the establishment Republican and Warmington is the establishment Democrat, Jon Kiper is something else entirely — a small-business owner, first-time candidate (in 2024), and self-described voice of the working class.
Kiper, 43, was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and grew up in Stratham. He graduated from Exeter High School in 2001, studied audio engineering at the SAE Institute in Melbourne, Australia, then came back to New Hampshire to pursue music and writing. He recorded two albums under the band name Jesus is a Jedi and published two books, including Dream Detectives: Something Funny About the Cake, a finalist for the New Hampshire Children's Book Award.
In 2014, he opened Jonny Boston's International, a burger and taco restaurant in Newmarket. He ran it himself for a decade — cooking, washing dishes, serving customers, managing the books. The restaurant eventually closed, reportedly due to soaring food costs linked to tariff uncertainty. He also served on the Newmarket Town Council.
Kiper ran in the 2024 Democratic primary for governor and finished third with about 9.5% of the vote, far behind Craig and Warmington. After the loss, he initially launched a 2026 campaign as an independent, but switched back to the Democratic Party in September 2025 after realizing there was grassroots energy looking for a candidate willing to say what party insiders wouldn't.
And Kiper is willing to say things other candidates won't. He has refused to sign the traditional New Hampshire pledge to veto any income or sales tax, calling it "stupid." He's openly discussed the state's over-reliance on property taxes and has made housing affordability, education funding reform, and cannabis legalization the pillars of his campaign. He's argued that New Hampshire's current tax system rewards wealthy retirees while driving out working families — a message that resonates with progressive voters, even if it makes the party establishment nervous.
Kiper is dramatically outmatched financially. He's raised roughly $22,000 compared to Warmington's expected fundraising machine and Ayotte's $2 million-plus war chest. About half of his haul came from a single donor. But he's betting that authenticity and a populist message can cut through in a low-turnout primary.
He lives in Newmarket.
Update: Kiper left the Democratic primary to run as an independent after state Democratic leaders coalesced around Warmington, NHPR reported. He ended his campaign in August 2026 after collecting about 500 of the 3,000 signatures needed to reach the general election ballot.
What to Watch
In early March 2026, the Democratic primary looked like the real story. Warmington entered as the frontrunner, and the Purdue Pharma issue gave Kiper ammunition. Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern had already announced, on Feb. 26, 2026, that he would not run, WMUR reported. In the end, Warmington was the only Democrat on the Sept. 8 primary ballot, and she won the nomination with about 96% of the vote, according to Citizens Count.
On the Republican side, Corey Lewandowski, then a senior adviser at the Department of Homeland Security, had expressed interest in running regardless of what Ayotte did. He was not on the primary ballot. Ayotte won the Sept. 8, 2026 Republican primary with about 92% of the vote over Shaun Fife and Robert Wayne McClory. The general election is Nov. 3, 2026.
New Hampshire's two-year cycle and its deeply independent electorate make every governor's race unpredictable. With Trump-era politics continuing to reshape the landscape, affordability pressures squeezing Granite State families, and a Democratic field still taking shape, 2026 could be a more competitive race than early polling suggests.
Stay tuned.
Related coverage: Governor Ayotte’s Re-Election Decision and the Emerging Challenger Field; Kelly Ayotte’s Favorability Decline: Impact on 2026 Election
Corrections: Granite State Report corrects verified errors promptly and appends a dated note identifying what changed and when. The corrections policy and the corrections register are public, and correction notes are never removed.
