CAMPAIGN KICKOFF. Somersworth business owner and Democratic activist Emmett Soldati announced 70 new endorsements in his challenge to Raymond Buckley as chair of the NHDP during Soldati’s campaign kickoff this week.
View the new and previous endorsements here.
The video-conferenced event attracted more than 200 activists, Soldati said, including Stafford County Sheriff Mark Brave; law professor and fellow former Executive Council candidate Leah Plunkett; and 2020 Democratic State Convention delegate and Latino activist Sebastian Fuentes.
Members of the Democratic State Committee will begin voting for chair and other offices on Feb. 11 via email or hard copy ballots, with the results to be announced during a remote state committee meeting March 14.
Soldati is running on a platform that the party must do a better job reaching out to and including local Democratic committees. His “Local First” platform was released in full Monday.
It includes an initiative Soldati is calling a “healthy primaries plan to conduct competitive yet equitable primaries.” He promises to hire a party finance director, a “full-time, year-round youth organizer and a data and research director.”
The plan also calls for “a more robust and sustainable plan to grow our grassroots fundraising, and an end to predatory consultants that take advantage of candidates with little expertise or background in campaigning.”
Sheriff Brave said in endorsing Soldati: “When I first started my journey in Democratic politics, I didn’t know who to turn to. Emmett made me feel I could touch upon issues in law enforcement without any pushback and be proud of what I’m doing.
“If we can take what Emmett did for me, making me feel like I can be safe expressing my feelings in a world of law enforcement, which is uncharted territory as a Black person in the state of New Hampshire, then I think he can do it at a statewide level.”