New Hampshire voters will soon pass judgment on the first special election of 2020 in the town of Hooksett.

The race on Tuesday, March 10, is to replace the late Republican State Rep. Dick Marple, and features a young GOP contender against a local Democratic activist and educator.

Party registration clearly favors the GOP as Hooksett is one of those unusual communities where there are more Republicans registered to vote (3,820) than there are independent voters (3,781). Democrats lag considerably behind (2,749).

The election is also on Town Meeting Day which tends to boost voter turnout which, all things being equal, should favor the Republican contender, Elliot Axelman.

In the GOP primary, Axelman soundly defeated two rivals with more longevity in town than he.

Axelman only moved to New Hampshire in 2017 as a follower of the Libertarian-driven Free State Project.

After it initially slipped my mind, I was reminded about the Free State Project while finishing up my research for the freest state and preparing to move to Wyoming. Once my memory was refreshed, I spent some time on the Free State Projects website, and I re-watched the video I had seen years ago, 101 Reasons Liberty Lives in NH. This tipped the scale from Wyoming to New Hampshire, Axelman posted in 2017.

If elected, hes vowed to support the agenda of Gov. Chris Sununu but has some other controversial ideas all his own such as getting rid of Medicare and the Department of Homeland Security, and calling Global Warming the biggest hoax in human history.

Axelman has proven himself to be a pretty capable fundraiser having attracted nearly $5,200 in donations for the job that pays $100 a year.

Among his supporters include former GOP State Chairman and Concord developer Steve Duprey ($500); current Republican National Committeeman Chris Ager ($100); State Reps. Jesse Edwards ($200) of Auburn, Mark Warden ($100) of Manchester and Carol McGuire ($100) of Epsom; along with the NH Liberty Alliance ($200).

The Democratic rival, Kathleen Martins, has been outgunned financially having raised $1,517 to this point. As a union member and educator, its little surprise that organized labor makes up the bulk of her donations, from the State Employees Association ($500), National Education Association ($100) and Merrimack County Democrats ($500).

She ran for the same seat in 2018 and was the top vote-getting Democrat finishing in fifth just 87 votes behind Marple.

Checklist totals are revealing

There were both good and troubling signs for both political parties as Secretary of State Bill Gardners office published at the end of last week the final numbers on registered voters in the wake of the first-in-the-nation primary.

Democratic Chairman Raymond Buckley should be pleased that the new totals mean his party is the biggest (324,593) in history. Prior to Feb. 11, Republicans had a slight edge in party registration but thats been wiped out now, though Republicans for the first time broke 300,000 as well (306,542).

For Republican Chairman Stephen Stepanek, what was real promising for President Trumps reelection efforts was that even without a real challenge there were still nearly 40,000 (39,685) independent voters who bothered to show up to cast a GOP ballot.

Democrats had many more independents taking part (130,758).

Then there are the new registered voters in the college towns where Democratic campaigns have often gone to harvest voter advantages every four years.

In the four biggest college towns (Durham, Hanover, Keene and Henniker), the number of new voters this time (3,169) was quite a drop down from those (4,731) that turned out in 2016.

Four years ago there was competition in both parties so one would think the new voter total would be higher but this kind of decline will surely spark questions about whether the new laws linking voter registration to residency did have a chilling effect.

Pro-abortion rights group endorse state senators

Emilys List, the largest political action committee supporting female Democratic candidates who support abortion rights, endorsed four incumbent state senators at the end of last week.

They are Senate President Donna Soucy, D-Manchester, along with Sens. Cindy Rosenwald, D-Nashua, Melanie Levesque, D-Brookline, and Shannon Chandley, D-Amherst.

Soucy is the only seasoned senator on that list; the other three are serving their first terms.

Democratic race for governor getting chippy

It appears the two declared Democratic candidates for governor, Senate Majority Leader Dan Feltes and Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky, both of Concord, are looking forward to getting after it.

After Volinsky first raised the idea of having debates prior to the dog days of summer, Feltes quickly responded hes all for it and proposed having 10 debates, one in each county.

The two campaigns also got into it over Feltes decision to return corporate PAC money and checks from limited liability companies (LLCs) that had exceeded the individual contribution limit. Feltes has sponsored legislation in past years to get rid of the so-called LLC loophole.

Feltes initial campaign fundraising reports had shown, and there were published reports that, he had taken corporate PAC money.

New Hampshire Public Radio reported last week Feltes had been airing Facebook ads about his opposition to taking corporate PAC money.

In response to the latest report, Feltes said he was returning $11,000 in donations.

People are increasingly concerned about corporate money in politics which is why in this campaign we are not accepting corporate contributions; weve returned any and all such contributions received to date, Feltes said in a statement.

Earlier last week, Feltes Campaign Manager Nick Taylor took to Twitter to accuse the Volinsky campaign of sending out a misleading email of his own to raise money.

However, its so disappointing to see the Volinsky campaign send a fundraising email tonight that they know is false. We had private conversations with their campaign this weekend to clarify our position, any timeline or narrative that was unclear in the NHPR story, Taylor posted.

Volinsky has declined to comment publicly on the controversy.

Conservative senator heading to NH

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., will come to New Hampshire to help raise money for the state GOP and also for U.S. Senate candidate Don Bolduc.

Cotton will be the keynote speaker at the Lincoln-Reagan Dinner for the Hillsborough County GOP Committee on May 1 at the Sky Meadow Country Club in Nashua.

DNC adding more staff to NH

The Democratic National Committee announced it is expanding its Battleground Build-Up 2020 program to include six states including New Hampshire.

These states will end up with additional field offices and double the number of organizers and operations staff.

Meanwhile, the top spokesman for NH Democrats, Holly Shulman, was dispatched to South Carolina last week to assist the media staffers of that state in the run-up to its primary.

Its fun to be able to use my skills accumulated over the last few weeks to help out people who have no idea the barrage of questions theyre about to get from reporters all around the world, Shulman said.

Lawmakers back in action

Fresh off school vacation week, the New Hampshire State Senate and House of Representatives resume business sessions this Thursday.

The House will take up the three dozen or so bills that were not completed prior to the break due to the long debate over issuing reprimands against House GOP members who did not attend a training session to prevent sexual harassment.

The House is expected to kill bills to impose a tax on the sale of electronic equipment and to subject ski lift tickets to the Room and Meals Tax.

The Senate will debate mandatory seat belts and is likely to kill a controversial measure aimed to impose restrictions on shooting ranges.

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State House Dome: Early 2020 bellwether to come in Hooksett special election - The Union Leader