Republican Jay Ruais was elected mayor of Manchester beating Democratic Alderman Kevin Cavanaugh. Manchester’s Mayor Joyce Craig stepped aside and will run in the Democratic primary for governor.
“I want to thank Kevin Cavanaugh for running a great campaign. He has been a selfless servant for the city of Manchester, and I have appreciated the opportunity to campaign alongside him and share our ideas and vision for the future,” Ruais said.
“Today the voters of Manchester spoke, and affirmed our message that Manchester has a great deal of promise and in order to reach our full potential we must bring our city together and tackle the challenges we have.”
Democrat Paige Beauchemin won the House seat representing Nashua Ward 4 formerly held by David Cote who stepped aside because of chronic ill health.
The unofficial results of the Nashua special election showed 409 votes for Democrat Paige Beauchemin, 265 votes for Republican David Narkunas, and 689 total votes cast.
That means the House now has 197 Democrats, 198 Republicans, 3 Independents and two more upcoming special elections to fill two Coos County seats.
Primaries were scheduled for Dec. 5 and the general election on Jan. 23 for the Coos County seats – one to fill the seat in the Lancaster area that was held by Troy Merner, who was asked to resign because he moved out of the district even before he was re-elected and is now under investigation for possible illegal voting and accepting mileage reimbursements.
The other is for the Coos District 6 area as state Rep. William Hatch, D-Gorham, stepped down for health reasons.
Unofficial results show Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess was reelected defeating County Commissioner Michael Soucy.