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Bolduc’s Closing Message: Conspiracy Theory After Conspiracy Theory
With just seven days left, Don Bolduc is stumbling into the final stretch of the general election. Bolduc has been criticized and called out for spreading a disturbing conspiracy theory about children in New Hampshire schools identifying as “cats,” a claim so egregious that a New Hampshire school had to correct it. He was also slammed for acting “like a conspiratorial nut” after he repeated a “classic” debunked conspiracy theory about election fraud in New Hampshire last week during the NHPR debate. And that’s on top of him getting an endorsement from Donald Trump for being an “election denier.”
“Children in America are not going to the bathroom in litter boxes in their schools. That apparently needs to be said because it is a conspiracy theory that a lot of Republican candidates out there just can't shake. The latest purveyor of this insanity is Don Bolduc, who is the Republican Senate nominee in New Hampshire.”
“I mean what this is, needless to say, nonsense. And not only is it a lie, an urban legend, it's one shared in the service of, let's be honest here, advocating for being cruel to trans kids. In any case, fact checkers for major news outlets have repeatedly looked into this and found no evidence for it. They've shot it down.”
Don Bolduc, a retired Army brigadier general who is challenging Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, made the comments while speaking to supporters in North Hampton, according to audio obtained by CNN’s KFile from an attendee. The claim, which has occasionally been cited by some Republican politicians, has been repeatedly debunked.
“Guess what? We have furries and fuzzies in classrooms,” Bolduc told the crowd. “They lick themselves, they’re cats. When they don’t like something, they hiss – people walk down the hallway and jump out,” he said, as a hissing sound could be heard.
I’m especially interested, however, in the fact that Bolduc is pushing this inanity. The New Hampshire Republican has, after all, spent much of the last two years peddling demonstrably ridiculous conspiracy theories about the 2020 elections, and in a debate last week, the GOP candidate went out of his way to tout discredited nonsense about non-existent fraud — to the point that some in attendance felt the need to laugh at him.
The broader significance is the sort of thing that might matter to Granite State voters: The Republican Senate hopeful doesn’t just believe strange things, Bolduc also appears to struggle to tell the difference between good information and bad. Given the powerful office he’s seeking, that’s a rather important flaw.
Is it any wonder that New Hampshire’s Republican governor, Chris Sununu, conceded a couple of months ago that Bolduc is “not a serious candidate”?
A New Hampshire school has rebuked the Republican US Senate candidate Don Bolduc for claiming schoolchildren were identifying as “furries and fuzzies” in classrooms, using litter trays and licking themselves and each other.
In response, Pinkerton Academy, in Derry, said Bolduc was indeed making it up.
On social media on Monday, the school said: “It has come to our attention that at a recent event in Claremont Don Bolduc named Pinkerton in false claims suggesting that unhygienic, disturbing practices are taking place in our classrooms and spaces on campus.
“We want to assure our community that Mr Bolduc’s statements are entirely untrue. We invite all political candidates to speak with members of our administration or visit our campus so they can inform themselves about our school before making claims about what occurs here.”
New Hampshire’s Don Bolduc, as much as any Senate candidate in the nation, has eagerly touted his enthusiastic embrace of Donald Trump’s “big lie.” In a recent interview with The New Yorker, the Republican candidate not only insisted there was systemic fraud in 2020 — there was not, in reality, systemic fraud — he also bragged about his willingness to reject certifying the 2024 results if elected.
As recently as August, Bolduc participated in a televised debate and stuck to his ridiculous position that the former president won the race he’d lost. “I’m not switching horses, baby,” the candidate said. “This is it.”
Perhaps my favorite moment from the debate came when incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan complained that Bolduc had spent the last year “stoking the big lie.” The Republican interrupted her to say, “Two years.” He then looked at the audience and held up two fingers.
If you look on social media from the period around the 2020 election, there is one thing that appears to be absent: any footage of a bus dropping off voters in New Hampshire.
If you are only vaguely familiar with Bolduc’s name, it’s probably because he was in the news a month or two ago, also for voter-fraud-related reasons. Bolduc won the Republican primary in the state after echoing former president Donald Trump’s false claims that the results of the 2020 election were suspect. [...]
But then there was this week’s debate. During a section focused on election integrity — itself a reflection of the spread of Trump’s claims — Bolduc elevated that idea about the buses.
Don Bolduc, a Republican candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire, scolded a debate audience when members laughed at his bizarre claim about out-of-state voters.
Bolduc, a far-right candidate and Army veteran, had peddled false claims about the 2020 presidential election before he distanced himself from them following his Republican primary victory last month.
The GOP candidate had campaigned on unfounded claims about election fraud [...]
Bolduc returned to making claims about election fraud during his debate against Democratic opponent Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) on Thursday. The Republican said “Granite Staters” tell him that school buses brought thousands of people into the state to vote illegally. [...]
Former President Donald Trump waded into New Hampshire's tight race for U.S. Senate Monday, endorsing Republican candidate Don Bolduc. In his endorsement, issued on his own social media platform TruthSocial, Trump focused on one issue in particular: Bolduc's record of repeating false claims of widespread voter fraud.
Josh Rogers: Well, the former president referred to Don Bolduc as a strong and proud, quote, “election denier” and said that that was a big reason Bolduc had won the Republican nomination. Trump also noted that Bolduc later disavowed his election denialist position, but, quote, “has since come back, at least on busing. But that's only a small part of New Hampshire election fraud. Nevertheless, Don Bolduc has asked for my endorsement, and he's got it complete and total.” That was what former President Trump said.
Josh Rogers: So Bolduc was saying he was hearing this from voters, and that he believes what he's hearing, that buses are somehow coming into the state on Election Day full of voters who end up casting fraudulent ballots. And to reiterate, there's no evidence of that.
The roller coaster campaign of Don Bolduc continued on its unexpected and unpredictable trajectory Monday, when former President Donald Trump took to social media to announce he would back the Republican’s senatorial run.
“General Don Bolduc has run a great campaign to be the U.S. Senator from the beautiful State of New Hampshire. He was a strong and proud ‘Election Denier,’ a big reason that he won the Nomination, but he then disavowed. He has since come back, at least on busing, but that is only a small part of N.H. Election Fraud,” Trump said Monday on his Truth social media platform.