With 2 women running, the New Hampshire governor's race is both close and personal

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — One of the nation's most competitive gubernatorial races has also become intensely personal.

None of the nation’s 12 female governors are up for reelection, but five women are running as major party gubernatorial nominees in four states. Two of them are in New Hampshire, where Republican Kelly Ayotte and Democrat Joyce Craig are competing to succeed Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican who is not seeking a fifth two-year term.

While voters and the candidates themselves say their gender is a nonissue in a state with a history of electing women to top offices, it has influenced their approaches to the topic of abortion and reproductive health care. Both candidates have produced television ads in which they describe having miscarriages after medical appointments during which no fetal heartbeats were detected.

“I know what that feeling is like when you have your dream shattered, and you think, ‘Wow, what if I can’t have a baby?’” says Ayotte, a former U.S. senator and state attorney general.

But while Ayotte's ad focuses on affirming support for in vitro fertilization, Craig's promises broader protections of reproductive rights.

“I was able to end my pregnancy without interference,” says Craig, the former mayor of Manchester. “I’m running for governor because these decisions belong to women, not politicians.”

In Indiana, where Democrat Jennifer McCormick is the only woman in the race, she has highlighted her gender as she criticizes her Republican gubernatorial opponent, U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, for supporting their state’s near-total ban on abortion.

“I am the only person on this stage who’s been pregnant, I am the only person on this stage who’s given birth, and I am the only person on this stage who is a mom,” she said in a recent debate. “I understand firsthand the complexities associated with pregnancy. I trust women, and I trust health care providers.”

But the “trust women” slogan comes with an asterisk in New Hampshire, where Craig often highlights Ayotte’s support for a federal abortion ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy and her role shepherding Justice Neil Gorsuch through his confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he joined in overturning Roe v. Wade.

“We can’t trust what she’s saying right now because she has shown where she is on the topic of reproductive freedom,” Craig said in an interview last week.

Ayotte insists she will veto any bill further restricting abortion in New Hampshire, where Republican majorities in 2021 made abortion illegal after 24 weeks of pregnancy.

“I’m not going to change our law,” Ayotte said. “She can say all kinds of things about it, but I think I’ve been pretty clear on what my position is.”

As for her trustworthiness, Ayotte emphasizes that New Hampshire voters sent her to the Senate and governors of both parties appointed her to be state attorney general before that.

“I’ve served this state,” she said. “I’ve served the people of New Hampshire.”

As a senator, Ayotte was part of the nation’s first all-female congressional delegation, just one of New Hampshire’s notable achievements in electing women. It also was the first state to have a female governor, state Senate president and House speaker at the same time, and the first to have a female majority in its Senate. In 2008, Jeanne Shaheen became the first woman in the country to have served both as governor and U.S. senator. Sen. Maggie Hassan became the second after defeating Ayotte in 2016.

That track record makes New Hampshire an outlier, said Linda Fowler, a professor emerita of government at Dartmouth College who has studied women in politics. She said research suggests voters have been more comfortable electing women as representatives because they view them as caring and good listeners, but they see governors as CEOs and believe the job demands a more masculine approach.

With no man in this race, Fowler says it will largely come down to turnout. Ayotte has skillfully tied Craig to crime, homelessness and other “big city” ills in Manchester, she said, but the abortion issue has Democrats energized up and down the ticket.

"This race is really going to be about mobilization, and whether abortion is going to outweigh people’s mistrust of our only big city,” Fowler said.

According to the Rutgers Center for American Women in Politics, 30 Democratic women and 19 Republican women have served as governor in 32 states, but never before have so many served at the same time. Even if the three other women — McCormick in Indiana, Crystal Quade in Missouri and Esther Charlestin in Vermont — fail, the New Hampshire race means a new record will be set of 13 women serving simultaneously as governor. And the number could grow with Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan poised to take the state’s top office if Gov. Tim Walz is elected vice president.

Despite the imminent record break, both Ayotte and Craig said their gender hasn’t come up on the campaign trail, and in a dozen or so interviews, voters told The Associated Press they've barely noticed that the race features two women.

Rachel Johnson, a Republican who ran into Ayotte at a highway rest area, said she doesn’t know much about the candidate but plans to vote for her.

“Whoever is best for the job,” she said. “Gender has nothing to do with it.”

Victoria Hill, an independent voter from Gorham, echoed that sentiment, though she is voting for Craig. After meeting the candidate in a guitar shop in Littleton, Hill praised Craig’s commitment to public education while criticizing Ayotte’s support for former President Donald Trump. Ayotte rescinded her support for Trump in 2016 over his lewd comments about women but says she now backs him again because his record in office was better than the Biden administration's.

“That’s the problem I have — her just wavering with whichever way the wind is blowing,” Hill said.

Associated Press Writer Isabella Volmert contributed to this report.

Joyce Craig, Democratic candidate for governor, talks with sawmill manager Joey St. Onge during a visit to the Milan Lumber mill, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, in Milan, N.H. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Republican gubernatorial candidate Kelly Ayotte, who faces Democrat Joyce Craig in the November 2024 election, listens to employees during a visit to a local concrete coating business, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Republican gubernatorial candidate Kelly Ayotte, who faces Democrat Joyce Craig in the November 2024 election, shakes hands with administrators during a visit to a local concrete coating business, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Joyce Craig, Democratic candidate for governor, talks with Mark Brady, administrator of Coos County, left, and Paul Grenier, former mayor of Berlin, N.H., during a visit to the Milan Lumber mill, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, in Milan, N.H. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Republican gubernatorial candidate Kelly Ayotte, who faces Democrat Joyce Craig in the November 2024 election, answers a question during a visit to a local concrete coating business, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Joyce Craig, Democratic candidate for governor, listens to workers during a visit to the Milan Lumber mill, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, in Milan, N.H. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

NEW YORK (AP) — Among the legacy news outlets that have come up empty in their efforts to interview Kamala Harris and Donald Trump during the general election campaign: NPR, The New York Times, PBS and The Washington Post.

Yet Harris chose to meet with Alex Cooper for her “Call Her Daddy” podcast and talk a little Bay Area basketball with the fellows on “All the Smoke.” Trump rejected “60 Minutes,” but has hung out with the bros on the “Bussin' With the Boys” and “Flagrant.”

During this truncated campaign, some of the traditional giants of journalism are being pushed aside. The growing popularity of podcasts and their ability to help candidates in a tight race target a specific sliver of the electorate is a big reason why.

There are certainly exceptions. Harris spoke to NBC News' Hallie Jackson on Tuesday and held a CNN town hall on Wednesday. But political columnist John Heilemann of Puck noticed what he called “an ancient, dying beast railing against the diminishment of its status and stature in the new world.”

“The campaigns have their structures and their media plans are very carefully thought through, even if we don't agree with them,” said Sara Just, senior executive producer of the PBS “NewsHour.” “Obviously, we hope they will do long, probing interviews with PBS.”

Journalists consider that an important service. Said Eric Marrapodi, vice president for news programming at NPR: “I think Americans deserve to hear the candidates have their ideas challenged."

That sounds like a campaign staff's worst nightmare, infinite opportunities for their candidates to trip up and have an unplanned story dominate the news cycle. And to what end? Most legacy news organizations don't have the reach they used to, and their audience skews old.

For half a century, a “60 Minutes” interview near the election was considered a key stop for presidential candidates. But Trump shunned broadcast television's most influential news show this year, and has criticized the way its interview with Harris was edited.

The former president has stuck largely to what he perceives as friendly venues with direct access to his base audience, and continually feeds interviews to Fox News Channel despite grumbling he doesn't find the network loyal enough. Indeed, Fox has also proven important to the Democratic ticket, which believes that appearing on its shows demonstrates willingness to deal with a hostile environment.

Harris' interview with Bret Baier was so contentious that it became fodder for a “Saturday Night Live” parody. After her running mate, Tim Walz, was interviewed by Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday” earlier this month, the campaign sought and received a return engagement the next week.

“I was a little surprised,” Bream admitted to Walz. “What's that about?”

In general, television networks don't have the audience they once did. CNN, for example, reached 1.24 million viewers per evening during the third quarter of 2016, when Trump first ran, and 924,000 this year, according to the Nielsen company. Broadcast networks are so named for their ability to reach a broad audience; sometimes candidates need that, often they don't.

The picture is more dire at newspapers, which collectively boasted 37.8 million in Sunday circulation in 2016 and dropped to 20.9 million by 2022, the Pew Research Center said. Candidates once submitted to tough interviews with newspaper editorial boards in the hope of winning an endorsement; now many newspapers don't even bother making that choice.

For years, candidates have been able to target advertising messages with great specificity — a swing state, even competitive cities, for example. The media now offers more opportunities to micro-message in the same way. Eager to shore up support among Black men, Harris appeared on Charlamagne Tha God's influential radio program — CNN and MSNBC even simulcast it — and was interviewed by MSNBC's Al Sharpton.

“The View” and Stephen Colbert's “Late Show,” where Harris has appeared, enabled her to talk to people less inclined to follow the news.

Few outlets offer the opportunity to zero in on an audience better than podcasts, which have essentially doubled in listenership since 2016.

The format is narrowcasting at its finest, said Andy Bowers, co-founder of the on-demand audio company Spooler Media. People who listen to podcasts often feel an intense loyalty to their favorites, almost like they're part of a club of people with similar traits and interests — and a candidate has been invited into that club for a day.

“You're talking to a specific audience with a specific bent and frame of mind,” said Tom Bettag, a University of Maryland journalism professor. “That's very helpful to somebody who is trying to avoid saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.”

For her interview with Alex Cooper on “Call Her Daddy,” Harris appeared on the most popular podcast for women. They discussed abortion, and one of Cooper's questions sounded like a grooved pitch: “What do you think of Trump saying he will be a protector of women?”

On the “Flagrant” podcast, hosts asked questions about Trump's children and how he felt during his assassination attempt. Host Akaash Singh interrupted Trump at one point to compliment him on how he raised his children.

“I think I like this interview,” Trump said. His appearance on the podcast, one of several efforts he has made to reach young men, has been seen by nearly 5.5 million people on YouTube alone.

Issues come up during these discussions, often mixed with the personal. On “All the Smoke,” the hosts began by asking Harris about the blind date where she met her husband.

Certainly not everyone is writing an obituary for traditional journalists and their coverage of campaigns. “I don't view it as a big break that takes away from legacy media,” said Rick Klein, ABC's Washington bureau chief. ABC's opportunity to question the candidates came in the most public of forums, when the network hosted the only debate between Harris and Trump.

Of the 10 sources of campaign news with the most views on TikTok over the past 60 days, six were legacy news outlets, according to Zelf, a social video analytics company. They were ABC News, CNN, NBC News, MSNBC, Univision and the Daily Mail.

For a strong news organization, there's also a lot more that goes into covering a presidential campaign than sit-down interviews with candidates.

“I don't think journalists should worry too much about access journalism,” said Mark Lukasiewicz, dean of the Hofstra University School of Communication and a former NBC News producer. “We should do journalism.”

David Halbfinger, political editor of The New York Times, cautioned against drawing too many conclusions based on a campaign that was unusually short due to Harris' late entrance into the race. The Times has followed the campaign aggressively with trend stories, investigations and spot news coverage.

“It's hard to know what the lessons will be,” Halbfinger said. “For a long time, candidates have tried to go around the news media. One way or another, the mainstream media does its job so I don't know how effective that strategy is. But it will be an interesting case study someday to see.”

David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Greensboro Coliseum, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024, in Greensboro, N.C. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks with members of the press on board Air Force Two at Philadelphia International Airport, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, in Philadelphia, before departing to Michigan. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)