Don Bolduc, a highly-decorated 36-year veteran of the U.S. Army with 10 tours of duty in Afghanistan under his belt, jumped into the U.S. Senate race in New Hampshire today.
Retired Brigadier General Bolduc, 57, who was one of the famed “horse soldiers” who rode alongside the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, announced his Senate run in the VFW Hall in Concord, New Hampshire on Monday morning. He will be taking on two-term Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen.
“I respect her leadership, but she has been part of the failed politics in Congress, and it is time for a change,” Bolduc said of Shaheen. Bolduc was introduced by his wife, Sharon, who described their “30 years of military service together” and said “I know I made the right choice when I said ‘I do’ 30 years ago.”
“Now that our time in the military is over, we have come back home to New Hampshire,” his wife said.
Bolduc, who received five Bronze Star medals and two Purple Hearts while in the Army, said his goal was to “make a positive difference” for “the people I love, the state I love, the country I love.”
He continued: “Why do you want to do it? Why? And you must listen closely to that answer. This is not a situation I envisioned myself in. I am not a politician, but like many Americans, I am ticked off by the partisan mindset in Washington D.C.”
Bolduc condemned the “politics-first mindset” in display in Congress that he said was getting in the way of fixing America’s problems, and he said he’d be a nonpolitician, promising to “tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.”
He said that “politics and failed leadership in Congress has gotten in the way” of solving a number of problems, including the opioid crisis, border security, the struggles of working families, healthcare costs, student loan debt, and national security. “Enough is enough!” Bolduc declared.
Bolduc also directed a large amount of his ire at the mistreatment of veterans by Veteran Affairs, saying that veterans deserve better: “They have earned it.”
And Bolduc pointed to his decades in the military as something that would set him apart in Washington: “After over 30-years in the Army, I don’t give a damn about politics — I am trained to get the job done.”
“Our children are watching and our grandchildren are watching,” Bolduc said. “We need to set the right example, and it’s not being set now.”
Bolduc framed the Senate race as being between “The 1%” who run the country and control Washington versus the mindset represented by “the less than 1% of Americans who serve” in the armed forces.
In his announcement video, Bolduc highlighted his service as a member of the Army’s elite special forces, saying, “I’ve always put people over politics and service over self.” Bolduc joined the Army in 1981 and would serve for 36 years.
Following multiple post-9/11 tours in Afghanistan, Bolduc went on to be the Deputy Director for U.S. Africa Command from 2013 to 2015 and then the Special Operations Command-Africa commander until 2017, where he helped oversee nearly one hundred missions.
Since his retirement from the military, Bolduc has focused on raising awareness about post-traumatic stress disorder, and he has worked as an adjunct professor at Southern New Hampshire University and as an adviser for Spirit of America, a charitable group that supports service members and their families.
Bolduc told the crowd that “if you think in the air-conditioned halls of Congress that I am going to back down from loud-mouth Democrats, you’re wrong.” And he swore not to run again if he didn’t accomplish what he set out to do as a senator, promising, “I will self-select out if I have not done a good job for you.”
Shaheen, Bolduc’s opponent, will be running for her third term in 2020. She first won her seat when she defeated then-Senator John Sununu in 2008 by a margin of 52% to 45%. The former three-term Republican governor had defeated her during her first run in 2002 by a margin of 51% to 47%. Shaheen won her second term in the Senate in 2014 when she defeated Republican nominee Scott Brown by a margin of 51% to 48%.
Shaheen is the first woman in the U.S. to be elected both as senator and governor, an office she was elected to in 1996, 1998, and 2000.
