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PORTSMOUTH, N.H., April 11 (UPI) -- Scott Brown, the first Republican to represent Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate in decades, has launched a campaign to win a Senate seat in New Hampshire. At an event Thursday in Portsmouth attended by about 200 supporters, Brown, who has spent most of his life in Massachusetts, played up his New Hampshire roots. He talked of visits to his grandparents.
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Brown was introduced by John Sununu, who governed the state from 1983 to 1989, giving him the imprimatur of the Republican establishment. At least three other candidates are seeking the Republican nomination, including Bob Smith, who was in the Senate from 1991 to 2003.
In his speech, Brown attacked Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., for her support for the affordable care act.
“She’s a very nice person, but she’s wrong on the issues affecting the people of New Hampshire,” he said.
Brown, who spent 12 years in the state legislature in Massachusetts, won a surprise victory in 2010 to fill Senate seat left vacant by the death of Edward Kennedy. Brown was the first Republican to win a Senate race in the state since Edward Brooke in 1972.
He lost his bid for a full term in 2012 and moved to New Hampshire shortly after leaving office.
New Hampshire was once one of the most reliably Republican states. But Shaheen's election in 1996 to the first of three terms as governor was one sign of changing times and her defeat of Sununu's son, John, in his bid for a second term in the Senate in 2008 was another one.
[Boston Globe]
