Warmington announces another campaign for New Hampshire governor

Cinde Warmington, shown in this screenshot from her campaign announcement video, launched a big for New Hampshire governor Wednesday. (Screenshot)

Cinde Warmington, a former Democratic executive councilor and gubernatorial candidate in 2024, announced Wednesday she is again running to be New Hampshire’s governor, becoming incumbent Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s first major challenger.

Warmington ran for governor in 2024, but finished second in the Democratic primary to Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig, who ultimately lost to Ayotte. Before that, she served as the lone Democrat on the Executive Council from 2021 to 2025.

Warmington launched her 2026 campaign by talking about affordability — a theme Democrats nationwide have attempted to seize on in recent months. Her campaign announcement video began by targeting Ayotte and her Republican colleagues’ decision to expand the voucher-like education freedom accounts, which she said “take your tax dollars and give them to the richest people in the state,” thus increasing property taxes. She also condemned Ayotte’s Medicaid changes and her response to the immigrant detention center the Trump administration is planning for Merrimack.

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Warmington promised to repeal the education freedom account program, fight President Donald Trump on health care costs and tariffs, and oppose the ICE facility. Notably, she also promised not to impose a state sales or income tax.

In the upcoming primary, Warmington’s only declared opponent so far is Jon Kiper, who finished a distant third in the 2024 primary. However, Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern and state Sen. Donovan Fenton have both publicly considered entering the race.

Warmington’s earlier work with opioid producers and a pain clinic will likely plague her campaign. She once, in a legislative hearing, called OxyContin, which would go on to fuel the opioid epidemic that hit New Hampshire particularly hard, “a miracle drug with few side effects.” In 2002 as a lobbyist, she helped pharmaceutical companies convince state lawmakers not to impose a legal requirement that patients must try at least three alternative painkillers before they could receive OxyContin. As an attorney, she worked with PainCare — a clinic that’s faced accusations of overprescribing opioids and been lambasted as a “pill mill” — when the owner was forced to give up his medical license and a doctor there was sentenced to prison for accepting kickbacks from a fentanyl provider.

Ayotte’s campaign team released a statement online immediately following Warmington’s announcement: “Cinde Warmington spent her career as a lobbyist for the opioid industry, promoting OxyContin and defending New England’s most notorious pill mill. Cinde made money off big pharmaceutical companies who hurt Granite States and is absolutely disqualified from serving as Governor.”