Manzur running for Senate to serve constituents, not donors

Karishma Manzur, a medical scientist from Exeter, is running in the Democratic primary for United States Senate. 

She’s a Medicare For All candidate, and says it's the desperation she sees in her own community that pushed her toward a run for political office. 

“I went into science to improve people’s lives, I went into the nonprofit sector to improve people’s lives,” Manzur told The Laconia Daily Sun in an interview earlier this month. “And as the next senator from New Hampshire, I will improve people’s lives.”

The race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) is competitive. Manzur is competing against Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) and Grafton state Rep. Jared Sullivan in the Democratic primary. In the Republican primary, former Sen. John E. Sununu is campaigning against Scott Brown, who previously served Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate, among other declared candidates. 

The primary election is Tuesday, Sept. 8.

“How is it possible that, in the richest country in the world, we have a housing crisis, a childcare crisis, a healthcare crisis and year after year, it’s getting worse?” Manzur asked. “And then as I looked into this a little bit further, it looked like the people we keep sending to Congress are not answering to the people, instead they’re answering to their donors, and that is why we need new leadership, fresh leadership, someone from the outside.” 

A fervent believer in universal healthcare, Manzur is also not the candidate to shy away from controversy: she supports the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, efforts to impeach President Donald Trump, ending what she describes as “U.S. complicity in genocide” abroad, and rejecting the political influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

“All I see are folks who look like deer in the headlights in Congress, but calling them 'deer in the headlights' is actually making excuses for their failures. They are not failing, they’re doing exactly what their purpose is in Congress, which is to answer to their donors and not to answer to the public,” Manzur said. “We have to reclaim our power as citizens.”

Manzur is involved with the nonprofit sector, serving on the board of Open Democracy Action toward the removal of “big money” from American politics. A sticking point for her, she said, came when former President Joe Biden, in 2021, pushed for an increase to the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour. Through her nonprofit work, Manzur said she was keenly aware Shaheen and Sen. Maggie Hassan received lobbying money from the National Restaurant Association, which opposed the increase. 

“Both our senators voted against increasing the minimum wage, so this was, for me, the ‘strike one,’” she said. “Because I saw that it was not some ideological reason, it was basically the donors had a bigger say in their decision than the people.” 

It’s special interests that complicate delivering for working people and families in the U.S., she said. Manzur pointed to the U.S. being singular in its inability, or unwillingness, to provide comprehensive health coverage to every citizen among developed nations. 

“When people say it's a complicated issue, it’s not. It’s just a lack of courage among lawmakers, but also they are basically answering to their donors who are profiting from the broken healthcare system,” Manzur said. “There’s a wonderful piece of legislation called Medicare for All that has been introduced in the [U.S.] House [of Representatives] and the [U.S.] Senate by Representative [Pramila] Jayapal and Sen. [Bernie] Sanders.”

Manzur said Pappas hasn’t co-sponsored Medicare for All during his time in Congress, which further influenced her decision to run for Senate, against him.

“This was appalling,” she said. “It made me very angry, because we lose over 50,000 Americans each year from lack of health insurance, or under-insurance.”

American foreign policy is a significant sticking point for Manzur — she strongly opposes the various interventions of the Bush and Obama years. 

“All estimated is 5 million people have died in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Palestine,” she said. “There’s that face of our foreign policy. The other face of our foreign policy is that we are spending trillions of dollars devastating these places. At the moment, our national debt is $39 trillion. The two biggest reasons why we have such a huge national debt is: one, the tax cuts to the rich as we move from a progressive tax code to a regressive tax code; and the second is that we are spending so much on our war economy.

“A $39 trillion national debt is unsustainable. We are looking at an economy that is almost somewhat of a Ponzi scheme.” 

Though that criticism of U.S. foreign policy is plainly pragmatic, Manzur made another from ethics. She said New Hampshire’s federal delegation is complicit in enabling a genocide in Gaza, and Pappas’ acceptance of AIPAC funds contributes to his support for supplying the Israeli government with weapons. 

“What is the purpose of public service if you’re not going to serve the public?” she wondered.

Garnering bipartisan support in Congress to overturn Citizens United should be the country’s first priority, Manzur said, characterizing money in politics as “the root cause of most of the problems” experienced in the country at present.  

“It is the greatest threat to our democracy, so we have to overturn Citizens United,” she said. “We have to bench super PACs. The dark money that’s coming into our elections is abhorrent. We also have to put in legislation to prevent Congress members from becoming lobbyists and lobbyists from becoming Congress members. This revolving door is terrible, because you should go to serve the people and not use that position to enrich yourself.” 

Manzur is tired of the status-quo, and looking to change it. 

“In my small town of Exeter, there are people who sleep in their cars. They put up a T-shirt to block up their windows, and they sleep in the parking lot next to the police station, because they feel vulnerable,” she said. “In the richest country in the world, that is unacceptable. As long as somebody is still sleeping in a car in my small town of Exeter, then my work is not done.”