NH GOP Candidate Matt Mowers is Product of New Jersey Machine
Republican with Few NH Roots Won Nomination Due to Trump Endorsement: OPINION
Matt Mowers, the 31 year-old Republican candidate for one of New Hampshire’s two House seats in District One, has been derided as a carpetbagger whose New Hampshire roots run no deeper than a summer dandelion. Mowers came to New Hampshire as part of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s failed 2016 Presidential campaign, and then was hired by the New Hampshire Republican Party to serve as executive director.
Before declaring residency and filing for federal office in New Hampshire, a state he reportedly doesn’t own a home in, Mowers was mostly know for his role in the Christie Administration’s Bridgegate scandal. Though not accused of wrongdoing himself, Mowers was art of a team that tried to intimidate local mayors in New Jersey, to get them to support Christie.
Mowers was a key witness at the Bridgegate trial.
Mowers became part of Donald Trump’s political campaign, and then was rewarded with a job by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in the highly politicized Trump State Department. Reportedly, Mowers doesn’t own a house in New Hampshire, but he managed to prevail in the Republican primary due to Trump’s endorsement.
He has even changed the pronouncement of his name, as Trump pronounced it differently. This type of sycophancy is more in-line with the New Jersey machine politics, dominated by bosses, than it is the independent New Hampshire way.
The Trump stamp of approval also put Mower’s fellow recent-New Hampshire transplant Corky Messmer in the winner’s circle, in the GOP race to face off against Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen.
Born in Missouri, Shaheen spent most of her adult life in New Hampshire, serving as one of the delegates at the 1976 Democratic National Convention for Jimmy Carter, who won that year’s primary. A stalwart member of the Granite State Democratic Party for over 40 years, Shaheen served three terms as governor of New Hampshire before being elected to the U.S. Senate.
Mowers’s opponent, Chris Pappas, is the very opposite of Mowers. His family has owned and operated the popular Puritan Restaurant in Manchester for a century. Many a Baby Boomer and young people of subsequent generations worked at the Puritan.
Chris Pappas’ Puritan Restaurant is an essential part of the Queen City community, as is Chris himself. Pappas has generously donated heaping helpings of his famous chicken fingers to many a charitable group’s fund raiser. His deep roots in Manchester and Southern New Hampshire (he previously served on the Executive Council representing District Four which reaches out to Barrington near the sea coast) not only make him part of the community but have made him a reflection of the community he serves, both as a businessperson and as a Congressman.
This connection to community is something the likes of a Mowers or a Messmer can’t buy. More importantly, neither one of these Republican carpet baggers reflect the Granite State or its people.
