U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan visited the Harris-Walz field office in Nashua on Oct. 12 for the launch of the Knocktober canvass blitz. Telegraph photo by Christopher Roberson

NASHUA – With the general election less than a month away, U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan popped into the Harris-Walz field office in Nashua to energize volunteers as they prepared to go door-to-door for the Knocktober canvass blitz.

“Understand what a difference you make at the doors,” Hassan said during the Oct. 12 launch event. “What you’re doing today is so important, it’s go time.”

She told volunteers that door-to-door canvassing made the difference in the 2016 election when she defeated incumbent U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte by 1,017 votes.

Hassan said Ayotte, the Republican candidate for governor, voted against the Affordable Care Act and voted to defund Planned Parenthood on four occasions.

“She may try to act moderate, but she’s not,” said Hassan.

In contrast, Hassan said Democratic candidate Joyce Craig reduced violent crime by 40 percent during her six years as the mayor of Manchester. Hassan said Craig also invested $30 million in housing programs to bolster the Queen City’s housing stock by 2,000 units including 500 affordable units.

In addition, under Craig’s watch, the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute was recognized by the Biden-Harris Administration as one of 31 Tech Hubs nationwide in October 2023.

As of Oct. 3, the state poll from the St. Anselm College showed Ayotte with 47 percent of the vote and Craig with 44 percent, making it the tightest gubernatorial race in the country.

In the District 12 State Senate race, Democrat Ben Ming is challenging Republican incumbent Kevin Avard, who has been in office since December 2020.

Ming said Republicans have controlled both the State Senate and the House of Representatives for the past four years.

“All their policies are neatly aligned with (Republican presidential candidate) Donald Trump’s Project 2025,” he said. “We must again defeat Donald Trump.”

In the District 5 race for the Executive Council, Democrat Melanie Levesque is taking on Republican incumbent David Wheeler, who has been in office since January 2021.

Levesque said the GOP made a major mistake by making Project 2025 publicly available at project2025.org.

“Now we can point to that,” she said.

Regarding the race for the White House, Hassan reminded volunteers that Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has vowed to protect reproductive rights.

She said that during Trump’s presidency, he appointed three justices, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, to the U.S. Supreme Court. Hassan said the three justices were tasked by Trump to overturn Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in 1973. However, the court’s 5-4 ruling, issued 49 years later, gave the states the authority to implement their own abortion bans.

“We’ve already seen the devastating effects of state-banned abortions,” said Hassan.

She also spoke about how former Vice President Mike Pence ignored Trump’s demands to reject the results of the 2020 election. However, she said that unlike Pence, vice presidential candidate JD Vance would abandon the U.S. Constitution and remain loyal to Trump if he was faced with a similar situation.

As of Oct. 14, the national poll from Harvard-Harris showed Harris with 51 percent of the vote and Trump with 49 percent.