Democrats won the battle for New Hampshire’s two congressional seats on Tuesday, with one winner being a political newcomer and the other an experienced campaigner with a long record of serving in elected office in the state.

In the 1st Congressional District, Democrat Chris Pappas won a fourth straight term in Congress, defeating Republican Russell Prescott.

And in New Hampshire’s second congressional district, Maggie Goodlander — in her first bid for election — defeated Republican Lily Tang Williams. Goodlander succeeds six-term Congresswoman Annie Kuster, who did not seek re-election this year.

The results mean New Hampshire’s federal delegation will remain entirely Democrat, while both U.S. Senate seats are also currently held by Democrats.

“Tonight, I am truly humbled by the confidence of the people of New Hampshire to continue our work over the next two years,” Pappas told supporters gathered at his family’s Puritan Backroom restaurant in Manchester. “I am here to work on behalf of all the people who call New Hampshire home.”

The state’s 1st District has been considered a swing district for the past two decades, with Republicans and Democrats regularly trading control of the seat. But Pappas has now won four races in a row, the last two decisively. In this campaign, as in his previous victories, Pappas cast himself as a bipartisan consensus builder focused on bread-and-butter issues such as drug prices, veterans’ needs and infrastructure.

The Associated Press called the race for Pappas around 11:45 p.m., securing 54% of the vote.

In an interview with WMUR Tuesday evening, Prescott thanked his family, including his eight grandchildren.

“I did this for them so they would see an example of how you can be a public servant and talk about the issues without becoming something so negative,” Prescott said. “This is not how politics should be.”

Pappas has years of campaign experience

Pappas is the first person to win four consecutive terms in the 1st District since Norman D’Amours, a five-term Democrat who held the seat from 1974 to 1984.

In their debates both Pappas and Prescott presented themselves to the voters as measured, veteran politicians as they touted their respective deep roots to New Hampshire. Pappas faced some criticism from his party’s left flank about his continued support for Israel’s military operations in Gaza, but he also regularly spoke about his support for reproductive rights to gain support among Democrats and independents. Prescott, a former executive councilor and senatorhighlighted his financial management skills as a small business owner, as well as the need to push for a balanced budget in Washington.

In 2022, Prescott finished fourth in the Republican primary for the same seat. The GOP nominee in that race, Karoline Leavitt, lost to Pappas by more than eight percentage points.

Pappas, at age 44, did a seasoned politician. He has served in the House of Representatives and won his first race in 2002 at the age of 22. He also served as Hillsborough County Treasurer and served three terms on the Executive Council before running for Congress in 2018.

Pappas has leveraged his roots in Manchester and combined them with his appeal in some progressive circles around New Hampshire, including the Seacoast area, said Jim Demers, a longtime Democratic figure and political observer in the state.

“He’s kind of established himself as someone who can hold that seat for a long time, if he decides that’s what he wants to do,” Demers said.

Goodlander successful in first attempt for elected office

Goodlander, on the other hand, made his first run for elected office this year.

“Whether you voted for me or not, if I have the honor of representing you, I will work for you – all of you – in the people’s house,” Goodlander told a room of supporters at the Bank of New Hampshire Stage in Concord . . “That means I will think of you wherever I am and wherever I go.”

According to Associated Press results, as of 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, Goodlander had won 53% of the vote, compared to Tang Williams’ 47%.

For Goodlander, the win was the pinnacle of a rapid increase in state politics. Before this year, she was a relatively unknown figure who had built her career in Washington, D.C., in a series of federal jobs: as a law clerk at the Supreme Court, as a lawyer at the Justice Department, as a staffer on Capitol Hill and as a Supreme Court associate. adviser to the Biden White House. But after returning to her hometown of Nashua earlier this year and defeating Colin Van Ostern in a hotly contested Democratic primary in September, Goodlander will now represent the state in Congress.

During her campaign, she presented herself to voters as a “workhorse” who could thrive in the Capitol. She is married to Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s US National Security Advisor. And her candidacy received support from Democrats at the highest levels, including Hillary Clinton and, locally, former New Hampshire Governor John Lynch.

But she also draws on her childhood in Nashua and her family’s political history during her campaign. Goodlander said she could see the hospital where she was born and her great-grandfather’s shoe factory from the living room of the Nashua apartment she rented when she decided to run for Congress. Her mother Betty Tamposi, a former state lawmaker, was featured in her ads.

Goodlander showed her off often support for reproductive rights as a cornerstone of her campaign, anchoring that policy position in a story about her personal experience struggling with access to health care in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. She also emphasized the idea of ​​a ‘fair deal’, including support for a range of efforts such as affordable health care, tax reform and access to housing.

That was in contrast to Tang Williams, who focused heavily on immigration and fiscal discipline in its messages to voters. Tang Williams ran for Congress in Colorado in 2016 as a libertarian before moving to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project. She spoke during her campaign about her childhood in China and her immigration to the United States.

At Goodlander’s victory party Tuesday night, pop music lifted the mood among her supporters. Among them was Lynch, who said he was excited to see the rise of a new state politician.

“I think she will be a new, fresh face in terms of Washington; she had an incredible experience,” he said. “It’s amazing what she’s done. She is very, very impartial. So I think she can work with people on both sides to craft important legislation for New Hampshire and for the country.