The former US senator built his campaign on this premise: “Don’t make a mass influx into New Hampshire,“A humiliating salute to Massachusetts” reputation as taxes and expenditures This implies that there is a “model” that Craig wants to emulate. Craig opposes it, saying he opposes an income or sales tax for New Hampshire but supports a tax on interest and dividends. It will gradually end in January.

But Craig regularly offered to bait Ayotte’s campaign with public participation in Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey. Healey She’s appeared alongside Craig numerous times, raising money and surprising him, even following him across the country last month. collect money in Berkeley, California.

Just this week Healey campaigned with Craig twice in three days, with plans to return to Hanover and Dover on Saturday.

Criticisms of the Commonwealth and yet Healey’s repeated visits to the north created an at times troubling narrative for Craig and Healey. He appeared to be trying to justify Healey’s presence on the campaign trail.

“At the end of the day, we’re all New Englanders and we’re all Americans, we all play for the same team,” Healey said Tuesday as he rallied volunteers at the start of a campaign for Craig in Manchester, N.H.

Healey touted Craig as a defender of abortion rights who would stand up to former president Donald Trump if elected. Room meaningfully He noted that he is a New Hampshire native, growing up in Hampton Falls and graduating from Winnacunnet High School, and that his mother, Tracy Healey-Beattie, still lives in the state.

“I’ll see more of my mom,” he joked while campaigning there.

Standing alongside Healey and other elected officials in Manchester, Craig touted Ayotte’s messages for Massachusetts. Influencing New Hampshire is “wrong” and called it a divisive tactic “To incite one community against another.” Craig recalled a recent campaign stop in Conway, NH; where he claimed business owners sometimes tell Massachusetts residents they wonder if they’ll still come to visit.

“New Hampshire is a little part of New England,” Craig said. “We must not make enemies.”

Regular encounters with Healey Still, it put Craig on the defensive. during a hosted discussion On New Hampshire Public Radio last week, moderator Josh Rogers pressed Craig about his repeated appearances with Healey, asking what implications voters should get from choosing to “spend every day” with the Massachusetts governor.

“Nothing,” Craig replied.

Healey “this “Just like other people have friends from out of state, I have a friend,” said Craig, a self-described fourth-generation New Hampshire resident. “I haven’t spent a lot of time with him. It has nothing to do with who I am or what I’m running for.”

Ayotte was amazed by the appearance. Writing a post on Wednesday on X He said Craig and Healey campaigning together was “otherwise known as a day ending in ‘y'”. His campaign then included a slideshow of photos of the two campaigns running together, set to the tune of Randy Newman’s song “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”

Massachusetts is not a new hurdle for New Hampshire. About One-third of New Hampshire GOP primary voters said this They believed too many Massachusetts residents had moved toward their side of the border in the past year, and some bristled at the idea of ​​importing their more progressive viewpoints. “Don’t do that. . . “Bring your liberal (expletive) to my state,” someone told the Globe at the time.

Of course, states and, frankly, people also share some economic similarities. Approximately 82,000 New Hampshire residents commute to Massachusetts for work. according to government records. New Hampshire’s unemployment rate is lower than Massachusetts, and both states have median household income It is above the national average, although the Gulf State is higher.

For some New Hampshire voters, Ayotte’s message resonated. Angela Johnson, a 50-year-old independent supporter of Ayotte, said the anti-Massachusetts rhetoric is rooted in taxes. Unlike Massachusetts, New Hampshire has no income, sales or property taxes. But New Hampshire has the second-highest property tax rate in the country, according to the right-wing think tank. Pioneer Institute.

“We want ‘Live free or die,'” he told the Globe at a fair in Fryeburg, Maine, on the New Hampshire border, referring to the New Hampshire state motto. Johnson, a resident of Milan in Coös County, said residents in the state’s north country would feel the pain of any tax increase. “There are some big city ideas that wouldn’t fit in the North Country,” Craig said.

Yet Ayotte is running to govern a state where more than half of its residents live. born elsewhere. Fergus Cullen, a Republican strategist in New Hampshire and an Ayotte supporter, said he was surprised that, given that, he continued to use Massachusetts as a proxy.

“I don’t know who you’re addressing, I really don’t,” he said. “Doesn’t seem like his strongest argument to me.” highlight as There are some advertisements He said it was stronger that he was the natural successor to the state’s popular four-term Republican governor, Chris Sununu.

(To be fair, Sununu rarely passed A. chance to punch -most massachusettsmore.)

Others are also surprised that Ayotte chose Massachusetts as the villain. Visiting a Caribbean restaurant in Manchester on Tuesday, Pat Long, a Democrat and 18-year veteran of the New Hampshire House, stood in the back of the restaurant and watched as Craig and Healey addressed a small crowd and dispelled a “Latino scam.” Joyce” campaign signs.

Long, who is currently running for the State Senate, said Ayotte’s harsh jabs at Massachusetts don’t make sense to people like him who are undecided on the issue. Among other strengths, I envy Massachusetts’ strong education system.

“I would be proud to travel with Maura Healey. He did great things in Mass,” Long said. “New Hampshire needs a little taste of that.”

KJ Ames, a 73-year-old Republican from Claremont, said the migration of people to New Hampshire, especially during the pandemic, means the state “is already Massachusetts.” And New Jersey. And Philadelphia.”

“A lot of people moved out,” he told the Globe in Fryeburg. But Ames said he couldn’t vote for Ayotte for another reason: “He defended Trump. And if there was a baby in the bathwater, I’m sorry, it’s gone.”

That leaves Craig, Ames said: “He might be a little too liberal in my opinion, but I’ll give him a chance.”

He added: “He has only been governor for two years.”

Samantha J. Gross can be reached at [email protected]. follow him @samanthajgross. Matt Stout can be reached at [email protected]. follow him @mattpstout.