Karoline Leavitt on Why Granite Staters Are About to Send Her to Congress

CLAY: We’re joined now by Karoline Leavitt, who is seeking to become one of the youngest members of this next Congress. She is the nominee for the Republicans in New Hampshire in a very competitive seat that she is trying to flip from Democrat control. We had her on before the primaries. So, first of all, congrats, and the primary in New Hampshire is not until September, right, Karoline? So, you’ve been really in the midst of a sprint, I’m sure, where everything has been crazy. How’s it going in New Hampshire? What are you seeing on the ground and what do you expect to see in 20 days?

LEAVITT: Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me back on. You guys had, I think, 48 hours before polls opened here in New Hampshire. In the primary, we had a huge victory. We won by ten points and now we’re ready to do the same thing in three weeks. We’re feeling great. We’re about 20 days out, as you mentioned. We are tied in a dead heat race with my Democrat incumbent opponent, Chris Pappas. Now, most of your listeners have probably never heard of Chris Pappas because, frankly, he doesn’t do anything other than vote with Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden 100% of the time.

So, he’s been a disaster for my great home state of New Hampshire, the live free or die state running in the district where I grew up, where my family has a business, where I went to school, played college softball, as you guys know, at a Division II school here in New Hampshire. So, we’re looking forward to a huge victory and turning the direction of our country around real quick come January, because, as you guys know, it is not moving in the right direction and voters know that as well. That’s why we’re very confident we’ll have a big victory here on November 8th.

BUCK: So, Karoline, we want to know specifically some of… you bring up and this has been the case for… this is the case for a lot of incumbent Democrats who all of a sudden are, “Oh, I’m a maverick. I go rogue on the Democrat Party.” And you say, well, hold on a second, where? How does that actually happen? I mean, what are some of the votes or some of the positions that your opponent, the incumbent up in New Hampshire, has taken, that the good folks of New Hampshire, many of whom are listening to right now, should know about?

LEAVITT: Well, they certainly don’t agree with the $5.5 trillion in new spending that my Democrat opponent, Chris Pappas, our representative here in the first District, has greenlighted. 5.5 trillion, which has led to the 8.2% inflation that we’re all feeling. The price of groceries, the price of gas, the price of everything is up. Our small businesses, which are the backbone of our economy here in New Hampshire, are really suffering. Their profit margins are minimizing every single day.

Secondly, his record on energy has been disastrous. He supported Biden’s cancelation of the Keystone. He supports the ban for drilling and fracking on federal lands, and he certainly supports massive socialist spending sprees like the Green New Deal that was introduced by his friend in the House, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which has led to the highest electricity rates in New Hampshire history, four times as high as they were last year alone. We actually called the press conference on this yesterday outside of an infamous country store in one of our great towns, Londonderry, New Hampshire.

People brought their utility bills to the press conference to show the increase, month to month increase over the past year alone. So, we are hurting both in our wallets for our home heating oil this winter. People of New Hampshire, we are literally choosing between heating and eating this winter, and it’s a direct result of this guy’s policies. One more, if I may. He’s been terrible for our law enforcement community. He promised our law enforcement here in New Hampshire that he would always protect qualified immunity. It’s the one safeguard they have. He voted to strip it in the name of social and racial justice because Nancy Pelosi told him to. So, I’m proud to be supported by the New Hampshire Police Association. And I’ll always vote to protect our good men and women in blue.

CLAY: Karoline, are you still 25?

LEAVITT: Yes, in fact, I am still 25.

CLAY: So, when will you turn 26? Will you be officially the youngest member of Congress? Do you know if anybody is younger than you in… come January?

LEAVITT: No. I will be the youngest member of Congress when elected in January. I’ll be the youngest congresswoman ever elected in the United States history. I turned 25 just before my primary in August. So, thank God for my mother for giving birth to me in time for this big red wave.

CLAY: All right. So, New Hampshire voters are famously fickle. That is, there are Republicans. There are Democrats. But you can correct me on this, I believe the majority of New Hampshire voters are independents. That is, they make a decision election to election, who they should support. If that is true, and I’m sure there are a lot of those people in the first District in New Hampshire. How are you appealing to those people who are independent and what are you seeing mattering to them the most as we come down the stretch run?

LEAVITT: Yeah. So, the most recent public poll has us leading with independents and I’m talking to them every single day on the campaign trail. And they’re going to vote for us because they are feeling the consequences of this administration. Joe Biden, Pelosi and our Representative Chris Pappas’ agenda. They’re feeling it again with inflation, with energy costs. The wide-open southern border has sent a lethal amount of fentanyl to our state, and it’s poisoning our communities.

And so, my message is to end all of that, to reverse to the policies we had a couple of years ago, domestic energy production, putting America first again. And so, we have a strong domestic policy that exudes strength around the world. Our adversaries are laughing at us. We need fiscal conservative policies. We are… we govern really well and effectively at the state and local level here in New Hampshire, we pass balanced budgets and we cut deficits. And that’s exactly what I will seek to do as their member of Congress at the federal level as well.

BUCK: Karoline, we obviously are rooting for you here. We know you do a great job and we get a lot of folks listening who, one, were encouraging to turn out for you there…by the way. Is it New Hampshire-ites?

LEAVITT: No, not New Hampshire-ites. You should probably never say that again. It’s Granite Staters, is what we call ourselves. We are the Granite State because we have a lot of granite here. It’s one of our top resources. So, we are Granite Staters.

BUCK: Wow. It’s so good. The New York guy is always going to get the New Hampshire name wrong, but I’m going to work on that one going forward. Where can the Granite Staters, who we are mobilizing behind you, where can they go to donate, to help out, to get things going?

LEAVITT: Yes, please. We need all of the support we can get from Granite Staters and your listeners across the country, too. This is a top pick up for the House to take back the house and remove the gavel from Nancy Pelosi’s hands. Go to my website KarolineForCongress.com. It’s Karoline with a K and I would encourage everyone to chip in and support. We would really appreciate it. We’re up against the Democrat machine. We’re tied and we got to get the ball over the finish line over the next 20 days. So, thanks for having me on, guys, and I appreciate your support.

BUCK: Absolutely. We’re going to get it done. You’ll come on and celebrate the victory.