By Michaela Towfighi
THE CONCORD MONITOR
Lily Tang Williams fears her new country is quickly mirroring her old. She grew up in Communist China, through Mao’s Cultural Revolution, arriving in the United States in 1988 as a Fulbright-sponsored professor. Today, threats of socialism and government intervention remind her of her past, she said.
Now, the small business owner and activist who is aligned with the Free State Project is running for the Republican nomination to challenge U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster for the state’s second congressional district seat.
Unlike Williams, who is quick to tout that she is an outsider who has made America her home, her challengers are two people familiar to the Granite State – life-long New Hampshire residents Robert Burns and George Hansel.
The candidates, who agree on few issues, unanimously say their district, which consists of the majority of the state outside of Manchester and Portsmouth, needs a new Republican leader.
Kuster, who is seeking her 6th term in Congress, has served the state for over a decade. Her three main challengers say she puppets President Joe Biden and does not do enough to deliver policy that specifically focuses on New Hampshire.
While quick to criticize Kuster’s allegiance to the head of her party, Burns does not shy away from his own. Burns, who unsuccessfully ran for Executive Council in both 2012 and 2014, is an unapologetic pro-Trump candidate, he said at a debate hosted by New England College earlier this week.
He served as a delegate in New Hampshire for former President Donald Trump in the 2016 election and has photos of himself and Trump on his campaign website.
His allegiance to the former president goes beyond his involvement in the 2016 election. It also leads to skepticism about the 2020 contest, in which Biden won in New Hampshire with 52.9 percent of the vote.
“Yes, it was absolutely compromised,” he said. “We’re not election deniers, obviously there are a lot of problems with our voting… When a vote is stolen, it doesn’t matter if the election is stolen, when a vote is stolen it is important and needs to be taken care of.”
Hansel, who is the mayor of Keene and the only candidate in a currently elected position, disagrees.
He recognized that Biden is the current president after winning the 2020 election, but what alarms him is the number of Americans that do not agree with that fact. It stems from a lack of trust in government from the Justice Department to the president, he said.
“This is probably the most critical thing going right now, is this lack of trust in these institutions,” he said. “If we don’t have universal trust in these things, we are going to have a hard time holding this country together.”
A Republican majority in Congress will fix that by rebuilding trust across the nation, he said.
“We need strong Republicans down in Washington who are going to stand up for fairness, stand up for norms and stand up for transparency,” he said.
One immediate policy proposal Hansel wants to see in Congress, focuses directly on the Granite State – heating costs.
“We need a fighter to go down and protect the price stability of home heating oil. That is something that is uniquely and specifically relevant to New Hampshire,” he said.
Burns focused on the workforce – another uniquely New Hampshire issue in an aging state trying to retain a young employee base – calling for critical manufacturing to return to the United States.
Pharmaceuticals, food, vitamins and other products can be made domestically, he said. It would bring business out of China, which poses a national security threat.
Williams, who is endorsed by the Tea Party Express, a political action committee that supports the Tea Party movement, turned to a national proposal. She promised to abolish the Department of Education as her first act in Congress.
“As a mother of three, and someone who was totally indoctrinated in communist China, I see how American parental rights are being marginalized and the left is taking over our classrooms,” she said. “The Biden administration’s educational department is going to have taxpayers’ money to teach critical race theory and gender affirmation stuff in our schools.”
With inflation at a 40-year high in July, all three candidates agreed that federal spending is the source of increased prices. If elected, each vowed to cut costs and focus on the deficit.
Hansel certified he is the only candidate that currently is responsible for maintaining a budget as the mayor of Keene.
Inflation comes from the increase in government handouts with pandemic relief programs, said Burns. The government should stop providing subsidized housing and energy costs, as well as canceling student debt.
“Ultimately, it is the printing of money that needs to stop,” he said. “It needs to stop now across the board, that is the only way we can reign in this inflation issue.”
Williams agrees – inflation is caused by uncontrolled federal spending, she said.
“The highest inflation rate in the past 40 years is killing my American dream, my children’s American dream,” she said. “People cannot afford anything.”
The winner of Tuesday’s primary will square off against Kuster, a Democrat who is running unopposed.
There is no clear front runner in the race, with an August poll from Saint Anslem College finding 65 percent of voters were undecided. Among the rest, Burns held a slight advantage at 12 percent, with Hansel and Williams trailing at 10 and 8 percent, respectively.
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