MESSNER MOVES TOWARD RUN. Republican Bryant “Corky” Messner has taken a significant step toward his long-expected entrance into the U.S. Senate race.The attorney, who is from Colorado and has been a resident of Wolfeboro for about a year, announced that on Thursday he’ll file an exploratory committee with the Federal Election Commission. “I am deeply humbled by the encouragement I have received in my travels all across New Hampshire,” Messner, a military veteran, said in a statement.“Voters understand that Democrat socialists in Washington are determined to radically transform America by abandoning the core values that made our country the greatest in the history of the world. They demonize our free market capitalist system while boosting the same ideas that have failed time and again everywhere they have been tried.“Jeanne Shaheen is unwilling to stand up to defend our values. I did during the Cold War and I will today." New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Raymond Buckley “welcomed” Messner into the race."Being a Colorado multi-millionaire with money to burn doesn't qualify you to be New Hampshire’s U.S. senator,” Buckley said. “Corky Messner can spend all his money, but New Hampshire voters aren't going to be fooled by this Trump wannabe's vanity project.”Retired Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc has announced his candidacy and is actively campaigning, while fellow Republican Bill O’Brien, a former New Hampshire House speaker, plans to announce his candidacy in Manchester on Tuesday.Buckley said the GOP primary will be “a contest of who can hug Trump the tightest, and with another candidate joining the fray it’s getting more intense. But New Hampshire deserves a U.S. senator who makes a difference for Granite Staters, not a rubber stamp for Donald Trump and his endless attempts to take away health care by repealing the Affordable Care Act.”