Close contact

Both Messner and Bolduc continued attending crowded events and shaking hands, joining a massive rally the day after New Hampshire’s state of emergency was announced. Bolduc even bragged about shaking hands with hundreds of people at a 14,000 person event in Florida this March.

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Opportunism

Messner and Bolduc have used the coronavirus crisis to play partisan politics and suck up to President Donald Trump. Messner solidified his loyalty to Trump by praising the president’s suggestion to cure coronavirus by drinking bleach as “aspirational.” Even after Trump’s chaotic and delayed response to the virus cost the U.S. more than 100,000 American lives and devastated the economy, Messner said in early June that Trump was doing a “good job” responding to the virus. Bolduc claimed lawmakers and health officials are using the pandemic to “create a crisis and take over.”

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Vaccine rejection

Both Messner and Bolduc have spread anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories, questioning the science and saying they don’t believe in mandatory vaccinations. Messner is “against mandatory vaccinations” and Bolduc said, “I'm opting out of that. No vaccination.” After being called out by a group of Granite State health experts, both candidates doubled down on their opposition to vaccines. 

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Ignoring hospitals and health care workers 

Messner and Bolduc opposed federal efforts to provide emergency hospital funding, even as Granite State health providers struggled and thousands of health care workers were furloughed. Messner even said hospital funding for the Granite State was “not urgent.”

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Denying science

Messner called the coronavirus pandemic “a situation where there is no precise, definitive science,” and has brushed off calls to believe scientists and health experts. Bolduc has spread a Russian conspiracy theory that China created the virus in a lab to kill off old people, even after the scientific community debunked it as propaganda being fueled by the Kremlin.

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