Lebanon
The District 5 seat, which Pierce held for two terms, stretches from Lyme to Charlestown and includes Hanover, Lebanon, Canaan, Enfield, Plainfield, Cornish and Claremont.
State Rep. Martha Hennessey, D-Hanover, said on Thursday that several people had encouraged her to seek the position in the November elections.
“I want to be sure that David is replaced by someone who is like-minded,” Hennessey said. “My voting record is very similar to David Pierce’s, and I believe that I can represent the entire district.”
Hennessey works in private practice as a psychologist and also is an adjunct assistant professor of psychiatry at Dartmouth College’s Geisel School of Medicine.
Besides holding a master’s of business administration from Wharton and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, she has also extensive Dartmouth ties.
The 62-year-old Hennessey was in the first fully co-ed class at Dartmouth, and her father, John Hennessey, was the dean of the Tuck School of Business.
Her late mother, Jean Hennessey, was known as a Democratic power broker in Hanover, and her stepmother is former Vermont Gov. Madeleine Kunin.
Though only in her first term in the House, where she sits on the House Children and Family Law Committee, Hennessey said she has not been reluctant to assert herself.
“I have felt that in the House I’ve been able to bring a fresh perspective and am not afraid to speak up about things I feel strongly about,” she said.
Others considering a run have little time to make their decision, since the election filing period will take place from June 1 to June 10, according to the Secretary of State’s website.
Upper Valley party officials and elected representatives on Friday said they didn’t know of anyone else running, though some hinted that more candidates could be coming.
“I don’t know of anybody,” said Lebanon City Councilor Karen Liot Hill, who is active in Democratic politics, “but it still is certainly early. So I wouldn’t be surprised. There are a lot of people in the Senate district who are very, very well qualified.”
“Martha is fantastic, and I know her, but she certainly is not the only qualified candidate,” she added.
Bruce Perlo, chairman of the Grafton County Republicans, said he knew of several potential candidates but wouldn’t be able to share names until the county committee meets on Monday.
Karen Cervantes, a Lebanon resident who also is active with the county Republicans, said the organization was scrambling to find candidates before the early June deadline.
Just before she took a reporter’s call on Friday afternoon, she said, she had been about to send out an email saying, in effect, “David Pierce is not running, and we don’t have any candidates!”
Others ruled themselves out.
Former state Rep. Joe Osgood, a Claremont Republican who ran against Pierce for the Senate seat in 2012, said he wouldn’t pursue it again this year.
“I’ve actually gotten myself pretty deep into my business, so the only running I’m doing is running away from running,” he said.
Osgood, proprietor of Joe’s Family Car Care in Claremont, said people had called him asking him to run, including one man who offered to help fund his campaign.
But “to be as truthful as I can be with you,” he said, “I’m a little too conservative to be running in this district.”
Pierce, who had served three terms in the New Hampshire House, handily defeated Osgood in 2012, 17,719 to 9,940, and was unopposed in 2014. Pierce said he was moving to southern New Hampshire this summer for family reasons.
As Liot Hill pointed out, the District 5 seat came to be seen as a safe one for Democrats after a Republican-led redistrictingtook away some of its GOP-leaning towns.
Although he wouldn’t call it a “no,” state Rep. Ray Gagnon, a Claremont Democrat and former mayor, also appeared to shy away from the race on Friday, saying he would “probably enjoy watching it more than participating in it.”
Gagnon said he was turning 68 in November, and said that Pierce, 52, had perhaps brought more vigor to the job than he could.
“State senator’s pretty much a full-time job nowadays,” Gagnon said.
Claremont School Board Chairman Brian Rapp, a firefighter active in Democratic politics who initially considered a Senate run in 2012, wouldn’t rule out another run on Friday, but said he hadn’t been planning one.
“I haven’t put too much thought into it at this point,” he said. “I will say I’m really sad to lose David Pierce. He’s been a great senator for us, and it’s really too bad that he’s not going to continue to be around for us up here.”
Sullivan County GOP Chairman Steven Smith, a state representative from Charlestown, said he had not heard of any candidates from his party, as yet.
Staff Writer John P. Gregg contributed to this report.
Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or at 603-727-3242.