Craig’s mayorship, Ayotte’s finances topics of gubernatorial debate by NH Business Review for Trisha Nail

The Oct. 24 gubernatorial debate hosted by the Greater Manchester Chamber continued in the same vein as the negative slugfest that has been playing out in debates and TV commercials for months, with each candidate attacking their opponent as much as touting themselves as they close in on the Nov. 5 election.

In a packed auditorium with standing-room only, Democratic candidate for governor Joyce Craig found herself on the defensive as Republican opponent Kelly Ayotte blasted her three-term leadership as mayor of Manchester, blaming Craig for the state of the city’s homelessness and alleging that she sought to raise taxes on retirees.

Opposite the stage from Ayotte, Craig accused the former U.S. senator of profiting from the state’s housing crisis and seeking tax breaks for millionaires over working Granite Staters. The two women argued their differences and advocated for their platforms during a Thursday morning gubernatorial debate at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, moderated by Scott Spradling.

Manchester leadership

The conversation started with a spotlight on Craig’s mayoral tenure, a subject of critique in Ayotte’s campaign advertisements this election cycle. Ayotte said she’s hopeful for a stronger economic path forward under Republican Mayor Jay Ruais, who succeeded Craig upon taking office last November.

“It’s important, as we think about Manchester, keeping our taxes low on the business community and making sure we have the right economic policies and support to allow the city to grow,” Ayotte said, giving a nod to the development of a regenerative manufacturing sector in the city’s Millyard pioneered by the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI).

“(It’s) thinking about partnering on issues like ARMI and what’s happening with Dean Kamen and the great biotech jobs he’s going to bring in the future, so making sure we have strong education and workforce,” Ayotte said.

The former mayor turned her attention toward efforts by her administration she asserted decreased violent crime in Manchester by 40%, opioid overdoses by 20%, and brought homes to the city during a continued time of need.

“Manchester has one of the hottest job markets, and we have over 2,000 housing units in development,” Craig said. “I am proud of this community, but Kelly Ayotte has spent this entire campaign depicting Manchester as a terrible place, and that is completely unacceptable. It’s hurting our community, hurting our businesses, and … we need a governor who is focused on lifting up every single community in the state. That is my goal.”

Some of Ayotte’s campaign advertisements have declared that Craig’s leadership allowed the city’s homelessness situation to become more prominent. She says Ruais has since focused on making sure Manchester “can focus on getting the homeless help” with an ordinance to ban encampments on city property while assisting unhoused people to find a place to live, and is “focusing on our veterans first and getting them off the street.”

Craig took issue with the Ayotte campaign’s notions, saying she introduced the National Alliance to End Homelessness to the Queen City.

“We did everything we could to tackle the homeless crisis in Manchester,” Craig said. “We opened up the first city-run, city-funded shelter for fatality prevention two years ago, still open today, and it’s full. We did this work on our own because we got very little support from the state, and it’s one of the main reasons why I’m running for governor.”

Housing

Responding to a question of how to incentivize towns to increase housing and change attitudes on “not in my backyard” mindsets from residents, Craig called the topic her “No. 1 issue I’m hearing around the state.” She says she plans to offer increased technical support to towns, helping them amend their zoning ordinances to welcome new residential property and develop more infrastructure to accommodate it.

As Manchester’s mayor, Craig said she pushed for $30 million allocated to affordable housing.

“We broke ground on one of the largest affordable housing developments in the state this past December,” Craig said. “Thirty of those units are earmarked for veterans, and the entire project is affordable, so we have been making this progress in Manchester and I want to be doing this statewide.

She touted her work as more impactful than Ayotte’s, whom she contends has placed profits over public service.

“My opponent has been sitting on a corporate board making millions of dollars on (real estate investment firm) Blackstone, who is profiting off of this housing crisis,” Craig said. “That’s wrong.”

Ayotte has been a member of Blackstone’s board of directors since May 13, 2019, the firm’s website states. The New York City-based company, not to be confused with investment corporation BlackRock which shares no relations, says it owned about 63,000 single-family homes nationwide in the U.S. as of the end of last year.

The New Hampshire Union Leader reported in August that Ayotte has been paid $150,000 annually on Blackstone’s board, owning more than 16,500 shares in the company valued at $2.2 million at that time. She and Blackstone have denied that the company has contributed to rising rental costs, with Ayotte calling them “Democratic lies.”

At Thursday’s debate, Ayotte countered that Craig has shut out housing ideas from private businesses. Ayotte also noted that in addition to serving on the board of Blackstone she also has chaired the board of directors of BAE Systems, from December 2021 to June of this year. That role made headlines in early October when it was listed among other positions in an ad from the New Hampshire Democratic Party and Craig campaign.

“One approach we won’t take, which my opponent seems to take in multiple occasions, is attacking the private sector,” Ayotte said. “I remember being at a ribbon-cutting with her at the Goffs Falls Plant here in Manchester, a great day for Manchester and BAE as well. Then she put ads on TV saying that my work in BAE was not an honest day’s work.”

Ayotte said she’s seen private sector companies put forth housing solutions around the state while partnering with New Hampshire Housing and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), recently with projects in Rochester and Swanzey.

“I want to make sure we overhaul our approval process at the state level to make it easier to build and develop and have that be a transparent, 60-day process,” she said. “Then, partner with local communities on issues like infrastructure and bring people to the table so that we’re building more workforce housing.”

Education

Tied to workforce housing on Craig’s mind was attracting and keeping young professionals in New Hampshire, which she said requires affordable homes, but also affordable education. Craig said the cost of in-state tuition means New Hampshire is “losing young people because they are going to college out of state” to save on tuition, as was the case with her youngest child.

“We need to make sure that we are also looking at college reimbursement for critical job shortages, like child care (and) like medical professionals, to ensure we’re doing everything we can,” she said.

Ayotte similarly agreed with championing education for critical jobs, voicing support for state scholarships linked to teaching about the child care sector. She said she’s witnessed firsthand families who have used such scholarships to get into the profession thanks to increased access and eligibility over the past two years.

That agreement diverted with other educational funding – the state’s Education Freedom Account (EFA) program, which allows families to use state-issued per-pupil funding for private schools, homeschooling and other non-public forms of education.

New Hampshire Democrats recently urged the state to perform an audit on the program after the NH Department of Education discovered five instances of families approved for EFAs who did not adequately prove they lived in the state and two other instances of families over the income maximum, factoring in total gross income, according to a New Hampshire Bulletin report. Meanwhile, Ayotte in her campaign has expressed favor of eliminating that maximum.

Craig seized the opportunity to criticize the program, considering it a “voucher scheme” and shamed Ayotte for wanting to remove the income limit.

“Doing away with the income threshold means it would benefit the most wealthy in our state. That is wrong,” she said. “We need to make sure we are funding public education, make sure our public schools have curriculum that’s necessary, our teachers have access to professional development and that we are decreasing class sizes. These are things we did in Manchester.”

In a rebuttal, Ayotte said over 5,000 children of low-income families have benefited from the program, avoiding directly referencing Craig’s point on removing the threshold.

Taxation

But the greatest divide between the two may have been taxation: “Our philosophies are very different on taxes,” Ayotte said. The candidates were asked about their thoughts on the repeal of the state’s interest and dividends tax in January 2025.

Craig referred to the action as giving the wealthiest Granite Staters a tax break, saying it would raise property taxes for working families. She expressed that she would find other ways to support those families after the repeal, like advocating to legalize cannabis so sales can support education and housing.

Ayotte shot back, responding that the interest and dividends tax hurts retirees and that Gov. Chris Sununu and the state legislature have sought to end its use. She alleged that Craig “proposed a tax increase when she was mayor” every year of her term.

“It’s obvious that Kelly Ayotte has not been around for the last eight years,” Craig quipped. “The state has been significantly downshifting costs to every community throughout our state, and we are seeing property taxes increase.”