Cinde Warmington faces renewed attacks over her Purdue Pharma legal work as she secures the Democratic nomination for New Hampshire governor.
Page A2From§Eachthe milkman edition — 9 September 2026
Fox's 'socialist surge' loses all four New Hampshire primaries to an opioid lobbyist and a senator's daughter.
As it ran on the front
You're sharp readers, and I mean that plainly, because a sharp reader is exactly who page nine is built for, and a smart operation knows better than to insult that reader twice inside three weeks.
On August 27th, the Washington Examiner reported a socialist surge closing on New Hampshire — a candidate named Karishma Manzur cutting a fifty-point gap against Rep. Chris Pappas in the Senate primary, with the whole party warned to brace for it. Fifty points, and I'll leave that number where it sits, because it only needs saying once.…
…(cont) Then the ballot opened, on September 9th. The Senate primary the Examiner warned about doesn't appear in today's returns. Four other contested primaries do, sitting on that same statewide ballot, and each one now has a winner.
New Hampshire's open House seat, the one Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is leaving behind, went to her own daughter. The New York Post reported Stefany Shaheen edged out a rival with a longer résumé in a bruising race. Is a seat that stays in the family the seat a surge was supposed to take?
The Democratic nomination for governor went to Cinde Warmington, who Fox News identifies, the same day, as a former lobbyist for the company that promoted an addictive opioid. Fox calls the renewed criticism over that work "attacks." Does an opioid lobbyist look like the insurgency the warning described?
On the Republican side of that same ballot, the House primary went to Anthony DiLorenzo, the candidate Donald Trump endorsed, over a small manufacturing owner and a sitting state representative. The governor's primary on that side went to the incumbent, Kelly Ayotte, who Fox reports kept some distance from Trump this cycle and still cruised past her own field. Which of those two looks like the socialist wave Fox spent weeks warning about?
Four contested primaries, four winners, one election — the warning ran August 27th, the results ran September 9th, thirteen days apart, under two separate bylines. If the surge was real enough to warn about, where did it go on the one ballot built to show it?
I keep a car in the garage that won't start without a new fan belt, and it rides on four tires, same as anybody's car. If one of those four went soft, I wouldn't need somebody else's headline to tell me — I'd feel it pulling before I made it to the corner store, on the first turn.
I bought a cheap cigar at that same corner store the morning the results came in, and stood on the sidewalk reading all four of them twice to be sure I had it right. Ayotte over her field. DiLorenzo over his. Warmington over hers. Shaheen's daughter over hers. Fox's own reporting calls each of those four winners establishment, or Trump-aligned, or both. Where in that list does the surge show up?
Oh — one more thing, before I let you go. The party held its own convention a few days after these results came in, and at that convention the same warning went back up: socialist surge, the same words the Examiner used on August 27th. If the wave just went four for four losing the only ballot it had to prove itself on, what is the convention warning about now?
“They spent weeks scaring us about socialists taking over New Hampshire, and when the votes got counted, the winners were a senator's kid and a Purdue Pharma lobbyist — that's not an insurgency, that's the family business protecting its own address book. The "surge" was never the story, it's the thing they wave at you so you're not watching who actually cashes the check. And three days after losing four for four, they get up at their own convention and run the exact same warning again, banking on nobody in this state owning a calendar.”
“Look, Kelly Ayotte kept her distance from Trump and still won big, that's a party unified around competence, not panic — and Cinde Warmington making it through proves Democrats will nominate anybody with a strong résumé, legal, lobbying, whatever you want to call it. The socialist surge warning wasn't wrong, it was early, we're just recalibrating the timeline — did I say the warning wasn't wrong? That doesn't sound like me.”
The receipts
Kelly Ayotte cruised past Republican primary challengers, setting up a high-stakes New Hampshire governor's race against Democrat Cinde Warmington.
New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte (R) is projected to face off against Democrat Cinde Warmington as she seeks a second term in the Granite State's governor's mansion, according to Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ). DDHQ and Cook Political Report forecast Ayotte is "likely" to hold on to her post in November.
Donald Trump endorsed Anthony DiLorenzo defeated Novel Iron Works owner Hollie Noveletsky and state Rep. Brian Cole to clinch the GOP nomination for the Granite State's 1st Congressional District.
Stefany Shaheen, whose mother is retiring from the Senate, edged out veteran Maura Sullivan in a bruising primary, defying sparse polling that had her down in the competitive contest.
· Fetterman: Democratic Party has 'socialism problem' from the morgue, 28 Aug 2026
· Socialist surge threatens Democrats in New Hampshire Senate race from the morgue, 27 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.