The 2024 New Hampshire gubernatorial election was held on November 5, 2024 to elect the governor of New Hampshire. Incumbent Republican Gov. Chris Sununu did not seek election to a fifth term.
Primary elections took place on September 10, 2024. Republican former U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte won the Republican nomination with 63% of the vote over former state senate president Chuck Morse, and Democratic former Manchester mayor Joyce Craig won the Democratic nomination with 48% of the vote over state executive councilor Cinde Warmington.
Ayotte won the general election, defeating Craig by a 9.34% margin. The election was the closest gubernatorial race for a U.S. state in the 2024 cycle. Along with neighboring Vermont, this race was one of two Republican-held governorships up for election in 2024 in a state Joe Biden won in the 2020 presidential election.
New Hampshire is a Democratic-leaning state in New England with a pattern of split-ticket voting. Incumbent Republican governor Chris Sununu was narrowly elected in 2016 and won re-election in 2018, 2020, and 2022 despite Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump losing the state in both 2016 and 2020. Sununu opted not to seek re-election in 2024.
This race was widely considered a tossup due to the incumbent retiring, the state's pattern of ticket splitting, and the concurrent 2024 presidential election.
Ayotte secured a major victory over Morse, winning almost two thirds of the vote. She performed the best in Sullivan County in the southwest of the state, earning 74% of the vote. Conversely, she recorded her worst result in Rockingham County in the southeast, receiving just 54.7% of the vote.
Aggregate polls<br />
Kelly Ayotte vs. Cinde Warmington<br />
Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic
Ayotte won both congressional districts, which both elected Democrats.
Partisan clients<br />
Official campaign websites