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Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan isn’t wasting any time in targeting her newly minted GOP opponent, retired Brigadier Gen. Don Bolduc, launching her first TV ad of the general election focused on abortion.
The ad, shared first with NBC News, will hit the airwaves across the state on Thursday and is part of an ongoing TV ad campaign.
“The Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade and Don Bolduc and anti-choice Republicans say we should ‘rejoice’ at the ruling denying women access to abortion,” a narrator says in the 30-second spot.
The ad refers to a June event with the Government Integrity Project where Bolduc said of the Supreme Court, "We got some pretty good decisions out of them, one of them today, why don’t we just rejoice that one right now, Roe v. Wade," according to audio of the event.
The ad also notes that Bolduc supports eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood. The Union Leader reported in 2019 that Bolduc said at a local Republican meeting, “I do not support funding Planned Parenthood as it is today because money is going to abortions.”
The narrator ends the ad by saying, “Don Bolduc and anti-choice Republicans are taking away your personal freedoms.”
Bolduc narrowly won Tuesday’s primary, per the NBC Decision Desk, defeating state Sen. Chuck Morse.
Asked in May about a possible federal ban on abortion, Bolduc told WMUR, “I am always going to default for a system that protects lives from the beginning to the end, and I don’t think I can comment on something I haven’t seen yet, but what Granite Staters need to know is that I have a tremendous amount of compassion.”
In a debate last week, Bolduc did not directly answer a question about whether he would support a federal ban on abortion, saying, “I want to protect life from the beginning to the end. I think that’s what our health care system is all about and that’s what we should be all about,” before criticizing Hassan.
Bolduc did tell Fox News shortly after declaring victory in the Tuesday primary that he would not support a recent proposal from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that would ban abortions nationwide after 15 weeks.
“No I’m not going to support it because it makes no sense,” Bolduc said. “The Supreme Court has already decided that this is a state issue. The states have it. That’s where it needs to be.”