Maggie Goodlander, a former Justice Department official and political newcomer, won the Democratic primary for New Hampshire’s Second Congressional District on Tuesday after a close race against Colin Van Ostern, according to The Associated Press.
Ms. Goodlander, who grew up in Nashua, N.H., but spent most of her adult life elsewhere, is married to Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser. She had won about 62 percent of the vote as of 8:45 p.m., edging out Mr. Van Ostern, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2016 and spent several years on the New Hampshire Executive Council.
The contest became unexpectedly nasty when Mr. Van Ostern, 45, a California native, accused Ms. Goodlander, 37, of exaggerating her ties to the state and questioned her support for abortion rights. A few of his high-profile supporters defected after he ran an ad casting doubt on the sincerity of Ms. Goodlander’s commitment to reproductive rights, citing her past donations to two Republican candidates.
Ms. Goodlander has spoken openly of her own struggle to find timely reproductive health care when her fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition and died in her womb. She has described that experience as one that led her to seek public office.
The Democratic tilt in the district, which stretches from the state’s southern border to its northernmost tip, and includes New Hampshire’s capital, Concord, gives Ms. Goodlander an advantage heading into the general election in November. The seat is being vacated by Representative Annie Kuster, a Democrat who is retiring; she endorsed Mr. Van Ostern, her one-time campaign manager.
More than a dozen candidates vied for the Republican nomination; the race had not been called as of 8:45 p.m. on Tuesday.
Ms. Goodlander had been depicted by detractors, including Ms. Kuster, as a well-connected Washington insider who described herself as “a renter” despite owning a $1.2 million home in Portsmouth, N.H., with her husband. Her critics had emphasized that most of her donations came from out of state, including from a number of Washington power players, and accused her of trying “to buy a seat in Congress.”
Her résumé includes stints as an intelligence officer in the Naval Reserve, a Senate foreign policy adviser, a Supreme Court clerk and a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department.
She was also born into a well-known Republican political family. Her mother, Betty Tamposi, served as a Republican in the State House of Representatives and ran for Congress in the same district that gave her daughter the nod on Tuesday.
“She didn’t win, but she learned a valuable lesson that she passed down to me: Always stand up to bullies,” Ms. Goodlander said of her mother in a campaign video, adding, “The fact is, the bullies have too much power in America right now.”
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