Kelly Ayotte hits back at Elizabeth Warren: You don’t speak for New Hampshire
One person who was not a fan of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Kelly Ayotte-bashing in New Hampshire earlier this week: Kelly Ayotte herself.
In a speech Monday, Warren said the New Hampshire Republican senator’s evolving positions on her party’s presidential nominee showed that Ayotte is “weak.”
“Donald Trump sure has made Kelly Ayotte dance,” Warren said at a campaign rally with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Ayotte’s re-election opponent, Gov. Maggie Hassan.
In an interview Wednesday with Boston Herald Radio, Ayotte was asked about the Massachusetts senator’s speech.
https://soundcloud.com/bostonherald/us-senator-kelly-ayotte-joins-herald-drive
“Maybe she should ask the police and law enforcement of our state whether or not they think I’m weak,” Ayotte said, plugging her tenure as state attorney general and recent endorsements from police unions.
“I have a long history of standing up for the people of New Hampshire,” she said. “You know, the thing about her coming to New Hampshire, a Massachusetts senator, and telling the voters, telling New Hampshire what to do, I think we see right through that.”
Ayotte went on to say that Warren is “just like” Hassan and has “never met a tax increase she doesn’t like.”
“That’s not the way of New Hampshire,” the Republican said. “That’s not what I stand for. So, you know, this race is really about who is going to stand up for our state. … I don’t think Senator Warren speaks for New Hampshire.”
Asked about the difficulty of running for re-election in the midst of a turbulent presidential campaign, Ayotte got in another jab at her south-of-the-border Senate colleague, touting her own ability to “work across the aisle.”
“I have one of the most bipartisan records in the Senate, which, by the way, is quite a contrast to Senator Warren, who is on the opposite side of the spectrum,” Ayotte said. “Because I focus on solving problems and getting things done for the people of my state.”
When one radio host asked if she could name an accomplishment Warren has had since becoming a senator, Ayotte said she could not.
Locked in a neck-and-neck race against Hassan, Ayotte’s campaign has highlighted the instances in which she has broken from the GOP party line, as she looks to attract independent voters away from her Democratic opponent.
According to the Lugar Center ‘s bipartisan index scores for the 113th Congress—the only full two-year term so far in which the two New England senators served together—Ayotte was the seventh-most bipartisan senator, while Warren was ranked 51st. In 2015, Ayotte was 11th and Warren was 85th.
For her part, Warren has rejected the idea that Ayotte is a moderate senator.
“Kelly Ayotte isn’t part of the solution,” Warren said earlier this month, hitting the New Hampshirite for her votes against raising the minimum wage, funding Planned Parenthood, and the Dodd-Frank financial reform act. “I wish she were because we need more moderate Republicans.”
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