Maggie Hassan, the former New Hampshire governor who won her New Hampshire Senate seat by just over 1,000 votes six years ago, has defeated her Republican challenger and will return to the Senate for a second term next year.
Ms Hassan defeated Don Bolduc, a retired US Army general who garnered an endorsement from former president Donald Trump by parroting his lies about the conduct of the 2020 election.
Mr Bolduc had attracted attention in the closing weeks of the campaign for repeating a well-debunked hoax regarding children being permitted to relieve themselves in litter boxes by public school officials, who were supposedly indulging the non-existent children’s decision to “identify as cats.”
“They’re putting litter boxes,” Mr Bolduc said in an audio recording shared by CNN before the election.
“These are the same people that are concerned about spreading germs. Yet they let children lick themselves and then touch everything. And they’re starting to lick each other.”
Ms Hassan’s victory denies Republicans a needed pickup and reduces the chances that the GOP can seize control of the Senate when the 118th Congress convenes on 3 January.
The Republican candidate had also pushed false theories about Covid-19 vaccines and the 2020 presidential election.
He also described the state’s popular Republican Gov. Chris Sununu as a “Chinese Communist sympathizer”, while Mr Sununu branded him a “conspiracy-theory extremist.”
Campaign finance reports showed that as of last month, Ms Hassan had spent $31m on her campaign to Mr Bolduc’s $900,000.
