PREP FOR THE PRIMARY

The Race for New Hampshire Governor

A side-by-side look at where Jon Kiper,Cinde Warmington, and Kelly Ayotte differ on housing, taxes, public schools, health care, and the future of New Hampshire.

Kiper vs. Warmington
vs. Ayotte

The Choice before democrats

TLDR; Democrats need more than a candidate who can talk about affordability. They need someone who can beat Kelly Ayotte and actually change where the state is headed. Ayotte is governing from the right and making the same failed choices on costs, schools, and enforcement. Warmington is better on some social issues, but she still looks like an insider candidate with thinner answers and too much baggage to be the clearest alternative. Jon Kiper is the one making the strongest case for a New Hampshire built around housing people can afford, public schools over vouchers, fairer taxes, and a government that answers to working people.

	Jon	Cinde	Kelly
Opposes School Vouchers
Supports Abortion Rights
Offers a Full Public Platform
Plans to Lower Property Taxes
Rejects Corporate PAC Money
Supports ICE Cooperation In NH
Corporate / Establishment Insider
Took Contributions tied to the NH Opioid Crisis

Candidate Breakdown

These are the issues that will shape the primary, the general election, and the future of New Hampshire.

Housing and Property Taxes

	Jon	Cinde	Kelly
Links housing to property taxes
Structural plan for affordability
Main approach	Build and rebalance	Message and affordability	Deregulate and permit

Housing and property taxes are squeezing people from both sides.

Jon Kiper is the only candidate treating housing and property taxes like the same problem. He is talking about building more homes, changing the tax system, and fixing the school-funding model that pushes towns to resist family housing. Cinde Warmington talks about affordability and the housing crisis, but her public case is still thinner on what she would actually change. Kelly Ayotte has mostly stuck to zoning and permitting fixes while costs keep rising and the burden stays on ordinary people.

Education And Vouchers

	Jon	Cinde	Kelly
Opposes school vouchers
Says public money belongs in public schools
Links school funding to property taxes
Explains how to fix the problem

This is one of the clearest places where Jon and Cinde part ways with Kelly Ayotte.

Jon Kiper and Cinde Warmington both oppose school vouchers and both say public money should stay in public schools. The difference is that Jon connects vouchers to the bigger problem: school funding, property taxes, and whether poorer towns get left behind. Cinde is good on the basic position, but Jon makes the fuller case for why this system is broken and what has to change. Ayotte has backed vouchers and made them part of her agenda.

	Jon	Cinde	Kelly
Public safety through services and support
Police accountability and oversight
Wants NH Police to Cooperate with ICE
Punishment-first politics

Public Safety And Policing

Voters should know who wants safer communities and who just wants harsher politics.

Jon Kiper is the only candidate in this race talking about public safety as something bigger than punishment. His platform calls for mental health responders, treatment over jail for addiction, more accountability in policing, and keeping local police focused on local safety instead of federal immigration work. Cinde Warmington is better than Kelly Ayotte on the worst immigration politics, but she has not put forward the same kind of clear policing and criminal justice break, and she still leaves room for cooperation with ICE. Ayotte is running the usual tough-on-crime playbook, with more enforcement, tighter bail laws, and more state alignment with ICE.

Health Care And Trust

	Jon	Cinde	Kelly
Backed Purdue during the opioid crisis
Takes money from health care corporate interests
Backed Medicaid premiums and higher copays

Jon Kiper is the only candidate in this race WITHOUT direct ties to the corporate interests that helped make health care more expensive and less safe. Cinde Warmington worked as a lobbyist for Purdue, fought a safeguard that would have made OxyContin harder to prescribe, called it a “miracle drug with few side effects,” and later kept taking money from the same broader opioid and health-care insider network. Kelly Ayotte comes from the other side of the same system, taking drug-company money and backing Medicaid premiums and higher copays that shift more of the cost onto patients. Jon is the clearest break from both of them.

LGBTQ+ Rights & Bodily autonomy

	Jon	Cinde	Kelly
Protects abortion rights
Protects LGBTQ+ rights
Backs anti-trans laws
Prioritizes bodily autonomy

Jon Kiper and Cinde Warmington are both stronger than Kelly Ayotte on abortion rights and LGBTQ rights. Kiper and Warmington arei clearly pro-choice and supportive of LGBTQ rights. In his public platform, Kiper frames abortion, trans rights, privacy, and medical decisions as part of a broader argument about personal freedom and keeping government out of people’s lives. Ayotte has already signed restrictions on trans youth care, which puts her on the other side of this issue. Jon and Cinde are aligned on the basics, but Jon gives those rights a clearer place in the larger case he is making.

politics and representation

	Jon	Cinde	Kelly
Takes corporate PAC money
Will open politics to regular people
Pushes for voting and ethics reform
Is the establishment pick

Jon Kiper is the only candidate trying to open politics up to regular people.

Jon is the only candidate making democracy reform part of the campaign itself. He wants to pay legislators fairly, cut conflicts of interest, and change rules that keep power concentrated in the same small circle of insiders. Cinde Warmington and Kelly Ayotte both come out of that insider world, and both take PAC money. Jon is the only one arguing that if working people cannot afford to serve, New Hampshire will keep getting the same politics and the same results.

Climate And Energy

	Jon	Cinde	Kelly
Will invest in clean energy
Treats climate change like a real problem
Has a long-term energy plan
Will lower bills through public action

Jon Kiper is the only candidate making climate and energy part of a broader plan to lower costs and build something that lasts. He talks about renewables, nuclear, efficiency, and corporate accountability in the same breath, which makes this a cost issue as much as an environmental one. Cinde Warmington is better than Kelly Ayotte here, but her campaign is not making the same clear case. Ayotte is still closer to the usual right-wing model of delay, deregulation, and protecting the same interests that helped create the problem.

The Choice is Clear

	Jon	Cinde	Kelly
Has a community-first platform
Isn't an establishment insider
Prioritizes people not corporations
Will win in the general

Jon Kiper is the strongest choice in this race. He is better on housing, stronger on property taxes, and far more capable of breaking from insider politics than either Cinde Warmington or Kelly Ayotte. If Democrats want a nominee who can beat Ayotte and offer something better, Jon is the candidate to back.

Support The Best Choice

A better New Hampshire will not happen on its own. Jon Kiper is building the strongest case in this race, and the people who join now will help carry that message through the primary and into November. Donate, volunteer, and help build the campaign while it is still being shaped.

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