2016 United States Senate election in New Hampshire


The 2016 United States Senate election in New Hampshire was held November 8, 2016, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of New Hampshire, concurrently with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections. The primary election to select the candidates who appeared on the general election ballot took place on September 13, 2016.
Incumbent Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte ran for re-election to a second term in office and won the primary by a wide margin. The Governor of New Hampshire Maggie Hassan chose not to seek reelection to a third term as governor and instead sought the nomination of the Democratic Party for the Senate. Hassan was unopposed in the Democratic primary and won the general election by 1,017 votes, representing a winning margin of approximately 0.14%. This is the closest race in a New Hampshire Senate election since the disputed 1974–75 election, and the first Democratic victory for New Hampshire's Class 3 Senate seat since that election. Hassan joined fellow former governor and Democrat Jeanne Shaheen in representing New Hampshire in the Senate.

Republican primary

Ayotte was predicted to face opposition in the primary from a Tea Party candidate. In October 2013, former New Hampshire Republican State Committee Chairman Jack Kimball said: "There is no question in my mind that she will garner a primary challenger". Ultimately, she faced only token opposition.

Candidates

Declared


Hypothetical polling		-------

Results

Democratic primary

Candidates

Declared

On Saturday, January 16, 2016, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire selected Brian Chabot to be their nominee for the U.S. Senate.

General election

Candidates

  • Kelly Ayotte, incumbent senator
  • Maggie Hassan, Governor of New Hampshire
  • Brian Chabot
  • Aaron Day

    Debates

Endorsements

Predictions

Polling


Hypothetical polling		------

;with Kelly Ayotte

Fundraising

Results

Allegations of voting irregularities

In February 2017, President Donald Trump told a gathering of senators at the White House that fraudulent out-of-state voting had cost him and Ayotte the election in New Hampshire. On September 7, state House speaker Shawn Jasper alleged that voter fraud swung the election. He made the allegations based on a report by the New Hampshire House of Representatives saying that of the 6,540 voters who had registered to vote on Election Day, only 1,014 of those voters had obtained a New Hampshire drivers license by August 30 of the following year. The Washington Post was able to quickly contact 3 such voters who said that they were college students and kept the drivers license from their home state.
Several investigations by New Hampshire's Ballot Law Commission found no evidence of widespread fraud, and only 4 instances of fraud total in the state for the 2016 elections. Specifically addressing the claim of people being bussed in from out of state to vote, Associate Attorney General Anne Edwards noted that they found no evidence for such claims. When they investigated these claims, they found that the buses were chartered out of state, but the voters on the buses lived in New Hampshire and could legally vote there.
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