WASHINGTON, D.C. — Tonight, Daily Kos congratulated Democrat Kevin Cavanaugh on his special election victory in New Hampshire. Cavanaugh defeated former Republican state Sen. David Boutin in this key contest that not only keeps a critical swing seat in Democratic hands but also positions Democrats to flip the chamber in 2018 and break the GOP’s stranglehold on Granite State government. Daily Kos endorsed Cavanaugh shortly after the June primary, and the Daily Kos community contributed over $16,000 to his campaign from almost 1,200 grassroots donors in less than a month. Preliminary results indicate that Cavanaugh won with 55 percent of the vote, an eleven-point improvement on Clinton’s performance in Senate District 16.
“Cavanaugh’s win tonight is a major victory both for New Hampshire Democrats and for the Daily Kos community,” said Carolyn Fiddler, Daily Kos political editor and senior communications advisor. “Our elections experts identified this small summer special election as key to Democrats’ efforts to win a majority in this state Senate next year, and we engaged the Daily Kos community to help Cavanaugh raise the money he needed to be competitive in this contest.
“Tonight’s win also provides another data point in the consistently expanding set of election results demonstrating Democratic over-performance in elections this cycle,” Fiddler continued. “Cavanaugh’s victory brings the number of contested congressional and state legislative races in which Democrats have outperformed Clinton’s numbers last fall to 21 out of 28. Additionally, Democrats have flipped four seats from red to blue since November. Republicans simply can’t afford this kind of poor electoral performance at any level of the ballot if they hope to hold on to state and congressional majorities this cycle.”
