Fed up with Washington, Maxwell Saal runs for US Senate to bring change

LACONIA — Maxwell Saal is fed up with the current state of this country, and has been since he graduated from high school nearly 20 years ago. Now, he's decided to take matters into his own hands, and run for the open U.S. Senate seat.

Who he is

Saal was born and raised in Colorado, and the 35-year-old Democratic candidate recently moved to Walpole, with his wife, Dani. He is a motorcycle enthusiast with a background in science.

Saal has seen the economy from a variety of perspectives since graduating high school in 2009, during a financial crisis, up through the COVID-19 pandemic, and now.

When he was young, he wasn’t a fan of school, saying he had a rough and unstable childhood, and had his sights set on finding a job in Colorado. That was tougher than he thought.

After about four years of working jobs hovering around minimum wage, Saal reluctantly returned to the idea of college, and attended the University of Colorado, in Boulder. He studied molecular biology and biochemistry, and worked in a laboratory as a support staffer, and said that was work in which he truly believed.

Saal worked in the critical care department of a Denver-based pulmonary laboratory, researching cystic fibrosis.

Why run for Senate?

Saal has never held political office or worked on a campaign, prides himself on not taking any PAC money, and never aspired to be in politics. But enough has gotten him “fired up” that he decided to give it a shot. He thinks nobody is fighting for his generation, or the next, and he's been feeling a sense of urgency and desperation.

“This has been a very exciting last year or so,” Saal said. “I think [since] 2025, we have seen a lot of really exciting and energized young people."

While working on cystic fibrosis research and attending college, he caught himself looking out the window, to see what was happening.

“And there’s a piece of me that’s deeply satisfied with this,” Saal said. “The Trump years certainly were eye-opening, I would say, but there’s a story that I always think back to, when I’m contextualizing our whole modern age.”

Saal had those four years before college of really feeling hopeless and left behind. He recalled being at a Republican debate hosted by his university. Someone asked him, out of the long list of candidates, for whom he would vote. He has never considered himself a Republican voter, but quickly answered he would probably vote for Donald Trump “to stick it to the man.”

“I still think about that today, because I think that is, in a nutshell, the whole movement, where that comes from, right?” Saal said. “I think there’s a lot of people in this country that feel like they’ve been left behind for the last 20 years, at least, and no matter who’s in power, it doesn’t seem like anybody really cares about them.”

Saal said in this race, on the Republican side, the front runners are two career politicians: John Sununu and Scott Brown. On the Democratic side, he said there are candidates like longtime Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) and newcomer Karishma Manzur. He doesn't necessarily dislike these two, but doesn’t get a feeling of urgency from them, to address issues facing Americans on a personal, direct level.

Saal isn't discounting that Pappas worked for a family restaurant, but noted he has been involved in politics since he was a teenager. He said Pappas has been effective in many ways in Congress, but he thinks as a legislator, he has been “very careful.”

“What I mostly see from him is careerism,” Saal said, and it comes off as not being genuine.

“When both of these candidates are emphasizing that they’re a fighter, when both of them are emphasizing that we want generational change, it’s because these two things poll very well right now,” Saal said of Pappas and Manzur. “That is the kind of political cynicism that I’m really pretty fed up with. If you’re going to say something, I want to believe you. That’s sort of where I find them both lacking.”

Housing crisis

Even though he was able to graduate from college, work his way up, and ultimately make money in the technology world, it still never became “easier or realistic” to buy a home.

“It was possible, in around 2009, to get a house for — I don’t know, I think it was still possible in some places to get something for under $100,000, and certainly under $200,000,” Saal said. “That is very much not the case now. I think the average home price in New Hampshire hit $575,000 this year. It’s ridiculous. Its really a huge problem.”

Saal said one thing he noticed as an engaged political observer was “nobody seems to understand” what it's like to work in this economy, and watch the “aspirational American dream” fall further away.

It is Saal’s goal to make it easier to build homes, shorten environmental review times, and cut red tape.

“These things make more homes get built faster at a lower price,” Saal said. “If you let homes get built faster at a lower price, we can have more homes, right? That’s very simple.”

Healthcare

Saal said every physician currently spends almost twice as much time at their desk filling out paperwork as they do seeing patients. This shows a “massive bureaucratic overheard” which, he said, has been enforced by decades of bad policies and stagnation.

Saal hasn't had health insurance the majority of his adult life, because it is “outrageously expensive,” and getting worse.

International relations

Saal said there are now three wars or conflicts in which the U.S. is involved: Ukraine, Iran and Israel.

In Ukraine, he thinks the U.S. should make it known this kind of war is not tolerated by the international community.

“First and foremost, I think that yes, we should continue to support Ukraine,” Saal said. “I think that Russia has been waging a war of choice. The things that they’re doing in that war are abominable.”

In the Israel-Gaza conflict, he said the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on a music festival by Hamas was atrocious, and what Israel has done in return is potentially more horrible and “needs to stop.”

“We are their chief international sponsor,” Saal said. “We have a ton of leverage over them. We’re not using it. We should at least be getting them out of there, and allowing aid in reconstruction. Essentially, it is crossed over to the point, and I was hesitant to use this word maybe a couple years ago, but at this point, I think genocide is the appropriate term.”

He thinks Israel is taking advantage of their position with America, and eradicating the Palestinian people, something he called unacceptable.

“Just as a human rights perspective, this is not something we should be condoning.”

He said the war in Iran is related, and an “unbelievable foreign policy blunder.” Saal said regime change and a potential revolution were likely the goals going in, and while he was clear the Iranian regime is horrible, the ongoing conflict is a national embarrassment, causing skyrocketing energy prices and other costs. He also said it is costing the lives of soldiers and Iranian civilians.

“The fact that we are essentially still in this conflict because of the president’s ego is kind of stunning, ridiculous and incredibly dumb.”

Immigration

“What ICE has been doing is absolutely horrendous and fundamentally un-American,” Saal said.

The institution of Immigration and Customs Enforcement itself he doesn’t see as redeemable. Saal said he doesn't condone open borders, and said there is a case-by-case scenario when it comes to illegal immigration, and suggested a potential path to citizenship and easing visa restrictions.

“This is a country built by immigrants,” Saal said. “This is not a country that should be locking them up and seeing them killed."

Why vote for him

“When’s the last time you felt like Washington gave a damn about you?” Saal asked.

Saal is fed up with both political parties, and said the world has been allowed to change a lot over the past 20 years, but the government has not done well keeping up. He said the focus seems to be on winning elections, without concern of what that means for the country.

Saal believes in the need for government leaders who truly represent the American people, not just a party, particular wing, or school of thought.

He sees the need for people of his generation, or even younger, being put into political power.

“Because, they actually understand what it’s like to feel this hopeless, and to want to do something about it.”

Saal admits this is a “long-shot campaign,” but thinks there are more people like him out there.

“I think we are starting to get enough people who really care about making the country better, that we are eventually going to get to that place,” Saal said. “I think it’s going to be bumpy. I think there’s going to be a lot of things we’re going to have to get through. But, to me, it’s really about understanding how bad things in the country have become, and taking whatever small wins where you can get them.”