Governor of New Hampshire, chris sununu. [applause] and the democratic nominee, dr. Tom sherman. [applause] im also very excited to be joined by three panelists this evening, Senior Editor of the union leader, mike cody. [applause] veteran political reporter kevin landrigan, also from the union leader. Student journalist cole tears guard from the Student College paper the new englander. [applause] lets begin. The first question goes to senator sherman. Typically, before undecided voters will consider a challenger, they have to make a decision on whether they will fire the incumbent. Why should chris sununu be fired . Dr. Sherman the major reason comes to trust. He said he would not put in place an abortion band, and with any year, he put in place an abortion ban. He has repeatedly said he would not do something, or he has not taken responsibility for things he shouldve taken responsibility for. Money we sent back because chris sununu said we do not have hungry children here. Another 18 million right in the middle for people with rental assistance, again, said we did not need it here, or at least he did not spend it all, and that with the second batch at risk. When we think about somebody in charge, they have to be on the ball, they have to be somebody we can trust, somebody was listening to granite staters, and he is not. He has taken us off was with the abortion ban. He has taken us off course with his energy policy. We need to get back on course and really focus on things that matter, cost and choice, thank you. Chris we will let you respond to claims in a second, but first, you made it clear dr. Sherman will take the state in the wrong direction could what will happen in a mentor if he is elected . Gov. Sununu we could focus all day on my opponent that i want to focus on what we are going to do, right . Fiscal responsibility at a time of massive inflation, and a time of what we all know a recession is coming about. A recession is coming, inflation is rear real and here to stay. You need somebody at the top that is physically fiscally responsible. My opponent voted for a tax cannot be toted twice. This is not the time to be taking more money out of peoples pockets. Not to safe and welcome of the government might have enough, youve got to give it to us first, right . We are going to wrap our services around your individual needs, your business, your kids, you as an individual, and that is the responsibility. Takes work to do that, but the system is so much more efficient, with better results. So making the individual come first. Chris 30 seconds to respond to an income tax. Dr. Sherman i have never voted for income tax. I would veto an income tax if it came across my desperate i want to talk about mismanagement of chris sununu. Property tax has gone up 1. 7 billion since he has taken office. Energy costs have doubled. The federal money i just talked about has gone back to it we need a governor who is paying attention, who is on the ball commend putting money back in the pockets of granite staters. Gov. Sununu if i may, this accusation before about property taxes, i asked the department of revenue administration, since 2017, when i became governor, the average property rates have gone down 10. 8 in New Hampshire. I think 82 of cities and towns have actually lowered their property tax rate in New Hampshire. You can go into the website, you can go to my website, governor. Nh. Gov, the data is there. It lists by town. It is factual, it is jerry data, and we are returning that cash to people. Chris lets go to mike cody now with a question for both candidates on the economy. Mike New Hampshire is hovering around 2. 8 , great for workers, not for employers, trying to find workers. What can the state do . Gov. Sununu a set of talking about it, doing something about it. We are the Fastest Growing comp population in the northeast right here in New Hampshire. First time in a decade that has been the case. Folks want to be here. Businesses want to be here, too, right . About 4000 new businesses since right before the pandemic. We are the place to be, no doubt. Housing is still the number one barrier we have to we dont just talk about it. I created the investing age 100 Million Dollar housing fund. It is phenomenal. The state had never done anything like it before. The grants are awarded as we speak. Shovels go in the ground, and we start building. We have to build 10, 20,000 units, one 100 million shot in the arm is not going to get us there, but it shows a record of success, it incentivizes cities and towns to say yes, it creates opportunities at the localized level. It takes the different pieces that tend to be the barriers, and, again, moves forward on the with the shard in the arm from the state that offset the inflationary costs that have held a lot of these projects back. Chris dr. Sherman. Dr. Sherman im glad to hear the governors listening to me about a plan, because all he has done on this is watch of the housing crunch becomes a housing crisis. Childcare is the other driver of this. Education, we dont have all the education pieces in place to develop that workforce. My plan for housing is a plan that builds off of the federal money that the governor has used in his onetime bandaid for housing. But it builds off a bit over the next several years at 35 million a year on childcare, we can do better by giving businesses tax credits to create that. For our schools, building out a running start, the pathways programs with our Community Colleges, with our university, to really make sure we are fully supporting businesses, because businesses tell me when they are fully supported, they could be so much more productive than they are currently. Chris the issue of housing and rent is when i hear consistently about from listeners we are going to stick with that topic, and more from mike. Mike i will change slightly, because both of you have answered a little bit. You referred to a town that rhymes with redford, governor sununu, we are talking about the resistance to multifamily housing. Bedford is not alone. Hooksett has a plan, a proposal before them to change this old headquarters into multifamily some kind of housing, and they are getting some resistance to what can a state do to encourage communities to allow these projects that happen . This is one of the biggest problems we have in New Hampshire. Gov. Sununu again, we did something that the state has never done before. We have a 30 million opportunity that incentivize towns, reward towns for saying yes to new planning projects. Sounds like rochester, these are doing really well, actually. And usually this cost. Family coming in across the town, so my plan, we are going to give every town that says yes to a new project, 10,000 per unit. That is a massive amount of money and far outweighs the potential costs over the next few years. The first towns to say yes get the money. So it is almost a race to see who can permit fastest. It has never been tried before, but already the response has been overwhelming from a lot of cities and towns across the state. In incentivizes with a caring, rewarding those towns to say yes that traditionally may not happy at not just natural, smaller towns and rural New Hampshire will all participate in this you will see smaller Housing Project everywhere. Chris same topic, dr. Sherman. Dr. Sherman mortgage rates, Interest Rates are going up, price of raw material are skyrocketing, what do we do to fix it . Dr. Sherman we have a threepart plan on my website. We actually brought it all the stakeholders and really talk to them about how to move forward. The first part is looking at towns and recognizing that each town has its own personality. We need to let the town built from the inside out. A lot of fear zoning laws are otherwise outdated. So we have helped them with grants and loans to make sure they can do that. The second part is incentivizing construction by working with the commercial and nonprofit builders to actually do that. The third part is what you just said, building out that workforce that will allow that construction to occur. What we have learned is we have to bring more of our supply chain back to New Hampshire. That is part of why i put in place, i sponsored the bill that would promote New Hampshire manufacturing with steel fabrication. That is how we need to be thinking about reading our supply chain home, so we dont have to outsource that. Chris political reporter kevin lanagan, and we will start with governor sununu. Kevin governor sununu, lets assume you are right and we start. This is 5 dividends task you champion. Given budget cuts in deficiencies you would pursue, which would balance the state budget. Gov. Sununu here is the beauty of New Hampshire. You dont have to go after budget cuts, right . Our surplus traditionally was, like, 60 Million Dollars could either that was really big when i first became governor. It is well across 400 million right now. Effectively, the State Government has too much money, because it is not ours, it is yours, right . We are returning it to the property taxpayers. Less budget had a 100 million return and property tax. The State Government cannot cut your taxes, but we can send that cash back. We have a lot of these funds already we do not need to do math effectively, we just have to get our taxes back in line with the locum inefficient spending that we set is already in place. Chris separate question for dr. Sherman. Kevin dr. Sherman, if we do heading into recession and revenues do begin to decline, even with a surplus, can you support the higher spending promises you made in this election, a large increase in education, tuition Free Community college, more state spending for childcare and health care, just to name a few. Would you consider raising existing taxes or suspending past tax cuts to pay for your initiative, if necessary . Dr. Sherman first of all, no income tax, no sales tax, lower property taxes, that is where some of what we are talking about, investing in our businesses come our schools, and that is exactly what im talking about doing. The other part that i also believes a great source of revenue, which we are currently outsourcing to all the states around us, is to legalize adult use cannabis. That is something that the people of New Hampshire want. That is something that would actually make what is being sold in New Hampshire safer. We know that if it isnt done properly, opioid abuse rates actually make drop in the state, some states like massachusetts and illinois. We know that we can raise effective revenue by doing it well. We have good templates to build that on, and that would allow us to move forward, even in a recession. Chris 30 seconds a night, do you agree with him in regard to legalizing cannabis . Gov. Sununu if the answer is, we are going to solve our budget problem by selling drugs, no. That is not the reason to do it. I think ultimately, this would become legalized here in New Hampshire, but we have been smart about saying, now is not the time. When you have a massive Opioid Crisis that is, you know, increasing all across the country, right . We have our new doorway system. I broke down and rebuilt the entire system, recoveryfriendly work races, i created in the private sector, we brought to the state sector. We are not just doing it in manchester and nashua but in rural parts of the state as well. That system has to be in place and successful before we start is legalizing more drugs. Chris 30 seconds on his statement regarding legalizing drugs being problematic. Dr. Sherman [laughs] we are not legalizing drugs. We are legalizing adultuse cannabis. Other states have done it successfully. Look at what has happened in New Hampshire on drugs since the governor has been in office. 2500, more than 2500 granite staters have died of overdoses. The rates are higher in nashua and manchester than they were when he took office. His doorway program, which is one of those things where chris sununu just decides to go do something, it is a failure, and people are getting sick and dying because of it. Chris 30 seconds. Gov. Sununu i cannot be more proud of the doorway system. It is awesome. It is rule access to care. It is a fully wraparound system. In 2020 and 2021, new mentor was the only state in the country where we did not see a massive rise in Overdose Deaths. It was basically even. Others have gone up 60 in Overdose Deaths. We were at the tip of the spear of the overdose crisis, the Overdose Deaths in the state have come down. It is just incredible. When i took office, we had the skyrocketing number come out of control, no plan, and we rebuilt the system. Chris time. Dr. Sherman look at the data gov. Sununu real data chris we will get to that in a second. Gov. Sununu very private. Chris senator sherman, you said governor sununu signed an abortion banded the definition of a ban officially or legally prohibit something, but abortions are obviously still attainable in New Hampshire are you lie and when you said he put in an abortion ban . Dr. Sherman absolutely not. He put in a band that we did not have before. We did not have a van at 24 weeks, which is what he put in place. What he said yesterday, he said he could not veto a budget containing the ban, because there was a continuing resolution. In 2019, when he decided he was going to veto that budget, we had a continuing resolution in 24 hours per on june 3, 2021, he went on the radio and said he would sign a budget that had an abortion ban in it before the budget even passed the legislature. Three weeks later, he signed it. He had three weeks, and he did nothing to protect the women of New Hampshire. He signed into law an abortion ban. Governor, i have to know, when you signed that, did you have the courage to stand up to your own party or the conviction to stand up for the lives of the women . Gov. Sununu yeah. Look, governors have to sign budgets with things in them all the time they dont want. In ever but he knows i did not put that in there. Dr. Sherman but you bragged about it. Gov. Sununu Everybody Knows i did not want that put in there. In the middle of the pandemic come over member this is 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, we are not going to risk the government. We are going to find and create flexibility for that, we got rid of it. I think its and have the flexibility to provide exceptions for rape and incest. I agree with tom sherman that we should not be criminalizing doctors over this kind of stuff could we should make provisions for the health of the mother. We agree on is vastly more than we disagree. Look at massachusetts. They have a 24week ban. Dr. Sherman they dont have criminal penalties. Chris dr. Sherman, 30 seconds. Dr. Sherman i never would have signed it. I would not have put the people of New Hampshire at risk. Gov. Sununu and i would not have shut down government, and i did it. Chris you did sign a late term abortion ban without exceptions and mandatory ultrasounds for women seeking abortions for why should granite staters trust that you would not sign a budget Going Forward that includes enhanced abortion . Gov. Sununu because i am the ones who worked with the swing vote republicans to make sure we governor of the altar sounds good i have been very clear about the additional flexibility that we want put in there. If our law was exactly like massachusetts, i think we would be spot on. Those of the flexibility i walk it weve had planned parenthood come before me, i think 13 contractors, maybe 12 or 11, i went all for one of them. This is not just about planned parenthood, it is about womens health, and we take that very seriously here. I always know we can go back and create more flexibilities. We can create more flexibilities yet again, and that is an opportunity both sides of the aisle have to create that opportunity. Chris 30 seconds, and i will bring dr. Sherman entered Lindsey Graham has discussed a National Abortion ban with a 15week threshold. Lets say the legislature comes back with something of that nature. Where do you draw the line . Gov. Sununu that is outrageous. Look, i think the legislature should codify roe v. Wade p i have been very public about that. I think tom agrees with that. Dont you think we should codify roe v. Wade . Dr. Sherman yes p dive never heard you say that. Chris dr. Sherman, 30 seconds. Dr. Sherman it is great i have had influence on you, governor. [applause] this bill that he signed into law had no exceptions for rape, incest, or fetal anomaly. Lisa achy had to reach out for help because she had a twin that was put at risk by Chris Sununus abortion ban. When she reached out to him, she never responded. She had to testify from her hospital bed to get that reversed. Actually, she is here. Governor, do you want to apologize to her . Gov. Sununu this is not about a single individual. Dr. Sherman it is about life. It is about health. Here is the imposing thing, the whole campaign, every ad you see is a negative attack ad on abortion from tom sherman. You never hear what he is going to duke it at the end of the day, we agree on this issue vastly more than we disagree, but that is all he is going to talk about. If we can get more flexibility come up we both agree we should be codified roe v. Wade, the fact that they try to make this some extreme issue when massachusetts is exactly where we should be, that is that moderation, the independent, looking at both sides of the issue, making sure both sides come together, find some sort of agreement, that is the opportunity we have a New Hampshire. Chris close out the section with dr. Sherman, 30 seconds. Dr. Sherman we dont put politics before people. The governor said yesterday he could not veto the legislation because there was no continuing resolution. Now he is saying he couldnt veto the legislation because there is a pandemic. His argument just keeps changing. And just like the trust issue, that is critical for me, as a doctor. I will always put the health and lives of the people of New Hampshire first, and the governor has made it clear. Chris lets move onto new englander student reporter cole. Cole New Hampshire has nearby cities like boston that offers more high skill job opportunities, more transportation, and more diversity. These are issues important to people. What can you do to recruit younger workers and recent graduates to stay here . Chris we will start with governor sununu. Gov. Sununu we have more families moving into New Hampshire than ever before. The percentage of young people moving in our awesome. I have to give credit to our new Business Department of economic affairs, not just on tourism but on economic opportunities. Theres a reason our unemployment is at record low, like two percentage we have 40,000 highpaying jobs, because we focus on business and the economy. I dont apologize for that. Im proud of the business tax cuts. Tom sherman tried to raise business tax. When you lower business taxes, you did the regulatory reform. Businesses want to be here and grow here. 4000 new businesses since right before the pandemic. That is opportunity not for chris sununu and the government, that is opportunities for all the young people, for all the workers want to be here. And look at the real estate. You cant even find a place, which is why we have to invest in Affordable Housing. That Affordable Housing pieces mostly for younger workers and younger families i get to come in and compete for not just one sector of business but all across the state. It is awesome. Chris dr. Sherman, same question. Dr. Sherman trust starts with saying the truth. Ive never voted for income tax. Ive never voted down his taxes. Ive never increased business taxes. Right now, the kids moving into New Hampshire, the housing crunch has become a housing crisis. If you look at the first version of the sununu housing plan, it has no Affordable Housing requirement in it. Now it is only five years, so after five years, it becomes commercial. That is not a solution. That is not even a bandaid. What we need to be focusing on his transportation, housing, childcare, and educational opportunities. Unless there is a place for people to live, they are not going to come here, but we have great promise, because the jobs are here. So one, we need to bring in highspeed rail. Is that something that helps . That will bring people up from boston. That will help build that workforce that the business is no. Businesses know. We need to invoke that housing plan and make sure childcare is affordable. Chris we are going to move on to one of our lessons from our sponsors, arp New Hampshire. How do you work to expand resources for the 50 plus living independently so more greatest daters can continue to live independently at home . 60 seconds, dr. Sherman. Dr. Sherman this is really important here we have seen people just desperate to stay in their homes. Weve also had a problem with having enough nursing home beds. It starts with workforce, and workforce means recruiting, training, and we have been working really hard we were on a chancellor search for the Community Colleges to make sure theres programming in our high schools and cte schools for young people who want to go on to a career. That has to have an increased wage, and that is one of the other parts of workforce, making sure theres a woman in portsmouth right now who is taking care of of an elderly woman all day long, and then she is sleeping in her car at night. That is not appropriate. We need to make sure she has housing. We need to make sure she is paid a living wage. And when we do that, seniors will have more opportunities. And the final part is the housing that is created for seniors and their own community has to be accessible. Chris governor sununu, same question gov. Sununu tom hit a lot of points there. So, you know, when you look at the rate increases that really have to come, those are specifically for nurses who might be working in a home setting, people who get better, longer quality care in a home setting. 2019, this is the democrat legislature. They did a good job. We would get a raise at a certain rate, they put it in a budget. Even though i vetoed the first budget, we got it done. Theres definitely opportunity to do that. We have enough nursing home beds. Its not about the events, it is about the workforce commit by may. Some folks need to be in a nursing home, and that is critical and goes back to the question about how to drive that younger workforce in here and making sure they have opportunities with housing to it i think, and i agree, eighth or ninth grade, get those programs available early on, in terms of health care, nursing, whatever it might be we did not even have an lcn program in the state when i became governor appeared i created three of them at the committee college. Chris thats time, and we go to kevin landrigan, a question for us for governor sununu on opioids. Kevin governor, you reference to this, but i wanted to drill down a little bit more. In 2021, we saw drug Overdose Deaths in the state proceed to largest cities spike backup. While many blame this on the flood of fentanyl coming into the region, do you need to create a more robust Doorways Program than the one you design . Gov. Sununu look, the program is only two or three years old. Theres always an opportunity to make a more robust and farther reaching for you dont want folks to go more than, you know, 10, 20, 30 miles from the home when you are asking them to go to a Recovery Program or leave work in the afternoon i go to a peertopeer program. Getting those spokes more aggressive is real. The fictional crisis has fundamentally the fentanyl crisis has fundamentally changed. I called a carteldriven. You have people doing cocaine or meth. They dont expect to be doing fentanyl, but it is all mixed in there. Marijuana is getting make with fentanyl. There are now vaped cartridges that have sentinel in them. Admiral feels have fentanyl in them. So the cartels have created a market for people who do not even know it. Opening the southern border has been an absolute disaster, not just for New Hampshire. Understanding the new aspects of how it is getting here. Chris 30 seconds, governor sununu, what more needs to be done . Gov. Sununu we have transitional housing, which is not used very often, which is surprising. We have transitional housing in manchester. They are having trouble filling those beds. Making sure folks know where the opportunities are paid you cant have somebody in colebrook to come to manchester. It will not work for the rest of the state. Allowing those two back investments, not just inflationary costs, getting them in the rural areas where they are smaller, that is important. Chris kevin has a question for dr. Sherman, along the same lines. Kevin last february, you cannot against governor sununus decision to Block School District from going back to Remote Learning, even if there was a resurgence in the pandemic. Given the current course of covid, president bidens statements that the worst of it is behind us, and evidence that students have suffered serious learning loss, would you still repeal the policy to let School District go back to all Remote Learning . Dr. Sherman i would make sure that School Districts could make their own decisions, but that is really something that we have always encouraged, is that School Districts know what is best, whether it is masking or going back to Remote Learning. I would make sure that they have whatever decisions they want to make at the school level, that they are reinforced. But what i would like to mention, that the governors Doorways Program, it is a fundamental flaw, that it does not recognize that people with Mental Illness have drug addiction, and that people with drug addiction need services the minute they ask for them, because if they dont get them immediately, they are going to go into withdrawal. Those are two fundamental problems. We know that treating, whether it is addiction or Mental Illness, it needs to be in your community, in your neighborhood, where you can get that service, the integrated Delivery Network is a great example of an effort that was that way, and the doorways spent an awful lot of federal money creating a system that was bound to fail because of siloing. Chris time. Governor sununu . Gov. Sununu lets talk about the question at hand. We were one of the first states to announce students were back in the classroom. The day that i announced, tom sherman was on television, saying it was a bad idea. The only folks who thought it was a bad idea was the Teachers Union and tom sherman. Parents knew it, teachers themselves knew it, kids knew it, everybody was begging, enough of the Remote Learning, get us back in there, and i said yes. Thank god i did. If you have someone who is tom sherman as governor, you dont know what you are going to get. You will have someone letting the Teachers Union dictate the policy, where things are going instead of understanding that it is all about the kids. It is all about the outcome, and we did a great job getting those kids back in, and thank god we did. If anyone had listened to tom sherman the day after, who knows where we would be . We would be like states like california or illinois or new york, that lets Remote Learning to go on and on and on, and that negative Mental Illness affects of kids get exacerbated. Chris time. 30 seconds to dr. Sherman. Dr. Sherman we have to recognize that the decision whether or not to go back was really up to the local communities. It was not my decision. It should not have been Chris Sununus decision. And that is something, it is all about the kids, just like chris said, but it is about letting the people who know those kids best make the decision. Chris i want to get back to the Doorways Program here. It seems like the challenges the doorway exists, but theres not the available infrastructure behind it. Is that a fair statement . Gov. Sununu no, that is not a fair statement at all could we created nine doorways across the state that are all attached to what . Hospitals hospitals have amazing infrastructures. What we found out his people were overdosing. They would dry out at 3 00 in the emergency room, there was a goodbye, good luck, and they let them go. Now we have the warm handoff. Having the hospital is part of the structure, Capital Medical doesnt in manchester, does it in manchester, it is a robust system with a backbone, which is what you need. The whole idea is Wraparound Service and not one organization, one service commit is a Wraparound Service because it is about that individual and what they need, not just what the state is offering in that moment. Chris 30 seconds. Are people receiving timely treatment for Mental Health and drug addiction . Gov. Sununu if you live north of concord, before the doorway was created, you never got treatment. You never got recovery. We were asking you to drive 200 miles. A young parent would risk losing their jobs, losing their family to drive 200 miles where the closest place was. That rural access to care is the secret sauce that we have that other states dont. That is why addiction rates have plummeted. Chris dr. Sherman, 30 seconds. Dr. Sherman i dont know who the governor is listening to, but he is not listening to his own department or what is happening on the streets in manchester. In my district, in seabrook, if you wanted help, you would not go to the doorway, which was 45 in its way, one, because you have to wait two days to three days, which you could not wait, because you would go into withdrawal, and two, because you could not get seen. If you drove to manchester, and im glad mayor craig is here, if you drove to manchester, you got services immediately. But at the fire station, not at the hospital. The governor does not understand the problem. He does not understand how interconnected it is. He does not understand the barriers, which are transportation, childcare, all the same ones. And he needs that understanding to create the right program. Gov. Sununu tom is exactly right. It was at the fire station for which is why i created the doorway. It was a stopgap to a more robust system, which we created, it is working very well. Dr. Sherman which is why overdoses are going up. Chris onto a different topic, and mike cote has this one first for senator sherman on power. Mike senator sherman, you have advocated for greater reliance on renewable sources, such as hydropower, winds, solar. What role would Nuclear Power play in that tradition over time . Chris 60 seconds. Dr. Sherman thank you. We have seabrook, and our neighborhood, ive worked with next era since they have been there. The current problem with nuclear is only how to handle the spent rods, in other words, the waste product. They are a current part of our energy program, but i also know that nextera has been really buying into hydrogen power, other sources, partially because we do not have the solution nationwide to spent fuel. When we think about how we expand our alternative energy, we need to give people the freedom to produce their own power, business is to produce their own power, with a one megawatt cap on net metering, that is not happening. What is exciting is community power. That is great. But we need to lift the cap, let the free market dictate this, and that also, really expedite what were are doing offshore, because that balance of offshore and solar would be great for the state. Chris similar question on the same topic for the governor from mike cote. Mike governor sununu, back in august, people started opening up their power bills and seeing that electricity was double what they were paying a year ago, a few month ago. Even before this big spike, power has been an issue for our manufacturing companies, the high price of power and getting companies to come here and stay here. What is the longterm solution for reliable power . Gov. Sununu the answers, our electric grid all across new england were tied together, so we got high rates in New Hampshire, even higher rates of in massachusetts. You need natural gas to provide the resiliency of your system. If you go too hard, too fast with this Green New Deal type stuff can exactly what biden tried to do, and look at the results appeared we are paying twice as much for gas, electricity. Have you gotten your fuel tank filled . It is to three times as much, because of the lack of materials going in. We closed down natural gas is because they are tied together. They have closed down Natural Gas Prices all across new england. You need that base Load Generation to be there when it is really cold, when the wind isnt blowing, the sun is shining, renewables are great, but if you do all or nothing, too hard, too fast will break the system. My 10 Year Energy Plan always talks about looking at these issues through the lens of the right pair. Again, across doing one, that is where our success can happen. Chris in 30 seconds each, who is responsible for the current spike in electrical rates them and how does it get fixed . Dr. Sherman every state is facing increased electrical rates, and that is not anybodys fault except perhaps the crisis in ukraine. We have seen the spike in natural gas since then. We will not be off natural gas, as the governor is saying. We need to have a blended source, alternative sources of energy to blunt the price hikes that come with natural gas. If we are completely dependent on fossil fuels, we are going to follow the fossil fuel market, and we are going to go up just like we did this time. We need to expand energy options, expand freedom to produce your own energy, and those prices will come down. Gov. Sununu look, it is bad democrat policy out of washington, affecting everybody in all 50 states. We see it with, again, tom wants to defend it, but there is a reason why your gas has doubled, while your electricity has doubled, while your oil is doubling. If youre on a fixed income, try filling up that fuel tank. It was not like that 18 months ago, right . But it is like that today. Policy impacts economics. It is why people are voting, because they are frustrating, angry, and they should be. They should be furious. Chris time. 30 seconds. Dr. Sherman yeah. I think the governor forgets about putin. This is not democrat or republican. This is about making sure we have an expanded portfolio where we can draw our power, especially at a time when theres pressure on natural gas. The governor actually vetoed one of our best tools for this, which is called procurement. He has vetoed or blocked every effort on Energy Efficiency weatherization. That is the power we dont use. This isnt a democrat or a liberal this is common sense. This is what we need to be doing. Chris time. Gov. Sununu sp clear. Lets be clear. I know tom wants to write a strongly worded letter to Vladimir Putin to solve the energy crisis. It takes leadership, it takes the transition dr. Sherman you are going to invade russia . Gov. Sununu [laughs] im not going to sit here and just blame putin, im going to talk about the policies that drove this 18 month ago. Ukraine was invaded, but these gas prices were increasing far before the whole ukraine it has been exacerbated, to be true. But you cant tell everyone who has to fill up all the gas tanks, tom, that it is for the invasion of ukraine. Chris speaking from an individual who owns an insurance company, he says on the seacoast, in New Hampshire, and other places across the country, people cannot get their homes insured because of the threat that Climate Change poses peer this question to the governor first, 60 seconds, what impact do you see Climate Change, if any, having an amateur currently in New Hampshire currently. Gov. Sununu Climate Change has a longterm impact, and it is not just New Hampshire commit is worldwide. We can make that transition. We talked about the opportunity to do that. Hydro, i love hydro. Brain come over noble hydro, right . Cheapest clean, renewable hydro, right . Cheapest is over the border. The democrats killed it. It is called the northern pass. I could bring clean, Renewable Energy down into New Hampshire. That is the smart way to do renewables and make that transition without overloading. It has to be a smart transition. I think weve done a pretty darn good job. We dont do this solar, renewable portfolio such as arizona appeared we do things like hydro, offshore wind, things that fit our makeup and geography. Chris when impact is Climate Change having in New Hampshire currently, dr. Sherman . Dr. Sherman we get back to the trust. When the governor blames democrats for northern pass, there was no guarantee it was going to stop here. It was going down to massachusetts and connecticut. It was his own puc that vetoed. Democrats did not say no. It was the fight evaluation committee. They said no, this is not good for New Hampshire, for all the reasons they elucidated in their report. Lets be clear we can do so much more. Our renewable portfolio standards are at 28, massachusetts is at 20. Germany is higher than us a letter to, and they are invoking all sorts of solar, and it is going very well for them. The governor will tell you otherwise. We know that rhode island right now, because they have procurement, it has been able to drop the purchase of their power to 7. 9 cents per kilowatt hour. The governor has blocked that. We can do so much better, unless you believe that the ratepayers are hurt, and they are not. Theres no data for that. Gov. Sununu the ratepayers are hurting. The Site Evaluation Committee killed it, and if you remember, i inherited all of those members from now senator hassan, when she was governor hassan. Absolutely, that is who killed the project. The 7. 9 cents, the average wholesale rate in 2020 was 3. 5. You are bragging about twice the wholesale. Chris we are talking right now, governor. Gov. Sununu the average in 2020, your wholesale rate was 3. 5 cents across new england, and he is bragging that 7. 9 cents is a great solution, that we lock and almost into perpetuity. Dr. Sherman it is a lot better than 2020 two, under your leadership. Gov. Sununu it is all the taxes, subsidies. Look your bills. It is all those other pieces, we call it the cheeseburger. He is talking about the cost of the cheese come on talking about the cheeseburger. Weve got to pay all the different individual slices that are in there. The most important, he is right, is the wholesale price, it was half of 7. 9 percent before joe biden took office. Chris on to a different topic gov. Sununu that is politics, and we dont want to do energy based on politics. Dr. Sherman but we do want to do health care on politics, right . Gov. Sununu no dr. Sherman now youre putting politics second on energy, so you are protecting ratepayers while you do not protect the women of New Hampshire. That is great, governor. Youve got your policies right in line. Gov. Sununu i get a, tom sherman is all about abortion, abortion, all the time. Dr. Sherman no, no, no, im about people all the time, and i dont put politics over people, i put people first. Chris moving on, we dont want to cut your mics here. Lets go to our student reporter, cole, who has a question no on divisiveness and politics, appropriately. [laughter] cole young people are increasingly frustrated with politicians that are unable to get things done. Can you provide an example of how you have worked across party lines, to solve an issue that matters, specifically to younger granite staters . Chris we will start with dr. Sherman. Dr. Sherman yeah. Actually, Medicaid Expansion was one of the first things i had an opportunity to work on. It was a Bipartisan Commission that brought it together i was asked to be the house representative to the Republican Senate caucus, and then moving it through, so that it actually got past, it was completely bipartisan, and when you listen, develop relationships with trust, you can then work across the aisle. In a prime beneficiary of that was young people who previously were not eligible for health care coverage. And it turned out to be the backbone of how we treated Mental Health and Substance Use disorder since it was first adopted. So that is one example. Another great example that we have worked on is actually promoting New Hampshire manufacturing. That is 250 jobs in New Hampshire, four factories for it i was the prime sponsor of the bill, but Sharon Parsons and i worked across the aisle. Chris governor sununu, some question same question to you. Gov. Sununu i had a fully democratic legislature. We had to find compromise. We found compromise picked some of the specific, things like the cola increase for firefighters, had not happened in over 10 years. We found a way to get it done. Im proud to have been endorsed by the New Hampshire firefighters association. To make sure those provisions were in there, if a firefighter got cancer, protection for those families we talked about energy. Tom talked about it. You bet i vetoed it. It was a disaster and gave all the money to the Developers Come on your backs and all the backs of all the ratepayers. What did we do . We went back and made a better, and we signed that bill that allowed the municipality to increase the size of their net metering, because that helps reduce property taxes. Now they can use larger solar type projects to reduce the energy burden. Chris time. Gov. Sununu it might hit a roadblock, but there is always an opportunity. Chris a recent nbc poll said 80 of democrats that if republicans were elected to office, the country would be destroyed pizza amount of republicans thought about democrats. That is indicative of the divisiveness. How do you go about addressing that issue . We will start with dr. Sherman. Dr. Sherman ive always been able to listen, build relationships. When you think about the initiative, i think anything that is sustainable and last in New Hampshire through the legislature has to be bipartisan, otherwise it is going to get next time through. I would remind everybody that the governor said the state record for vetoes in 2018 im sorry, 2019, 2020, when he is being oh bipartisan, but the rest of us always have been able to work together. There is a republican who said i want to repeal the state Health Assessment state Health Improvement plan. We worked together and actually made a better. That is the way we move forward. We move forward by reaching across party lines and find that little tiny thread of Common Ground and make sure we get the job done. Chris governor sununu. Gov. Sununu look, in many ways, this is the most important question that is facing us. If you cant come together and get stuff done, nothing is going to get done. One of the main reasons i did not want to go to washington, they are useless down there. They do nothing. Here you can affect change in an independent state. You are never going to win anything with extremes. First and foremost, as politicians, as leaders, first, we have to understand this is not a career, and most importantly, this is not about us. The java so much bigger than us. It is about the 1. 4 Million People that we represented i get to be really selfish for the New Hampshire people to it i want to represent New Hampshire every time. We challenge each other to be the best state, which is why we have the lowest poverty rate, some of the highest wages, some of the best Public Schools, beijing statistics amazing statistics around us. Why do so many folks want to move to New Hampshire . Why do we have so many new businesses . Because we dont put politics first, we understand we are an independent, purple state, and we dont do it like everyone else does. We are the unique ones. We are the place everybody wants to be. Chris we want to move onto to a question from arp New Hampshire. What states will you take to ensure all granite staters have access to livable communities, and what does a Livable Community look like to governor sununu . 60 seconds. Gov. Sununu a Livable Community is, again, making sure that you have access and appropriate means to whatever the services might be. Do we have hospitals in our larue areas . Are we asking people to drive hundreds of miles away to get Recovery Services or Mental Health services p are we talking about Mental Health services with just the hospital of manchester . I brought a hospital for children, to understand that that axis is going to be there. Youve got to create the access and opportunities p i hear tom talk about raising the minimum wage. Look, you can walk into mcdonalds right now and make 16 an hour. It is not about the minimum wage. I think we are averaging 50 in the country for highest average hold sold wages. Household wages. 30,000 highpaying jobs today, lowest unemployment rate, lowest poverty rate in the country. Those are the opportunities you create to make sure people have the means and the access. Chris dr. Sherman. Dr. Sherman frankly, i find it appalling that the governor is so out of touch with what is happening in his own state. I mean, theres that woman in the car, taking care of the elderly woman, she is making 12 an hour. There are people making 7. 25 in our state, and the governor does not know that. He does not know that people cant get care when they needed for Substance Use disorder. He doesnt know that there are still children and adults waiting in our emergency room some even though he claims to have brought a Mental Health hospital. He doesnt have a plan for staffing that hospital. This is just the sort of one after another bandaid without understanding the wound that is underneath. We need to understand the root causes of a problem, and really attack the root causes of the problem, not just slap bandaids on it. That is the way we make sure that our seniors, or children, or adults, at our young adult actually have access to all the services that they need. Chris 30 seconds. Gov. Sununu look, the results speak for themselves. Going to surrounding states, go anywhere in america, and you can realize all the opportunities we created, it doesnt mean we dont have challenges. Of course we do. We always got to take on those challenges. Just because we have the lowest poverty rate in the country does not mean we dont have folks that dont have opportunity. We are going to challenge ourselves. School education, the education freedom accounts, making sure lower income families have the same opportunities as everybody else, these are the kinds of things that work, that are successful, that put the individual first. Thomas pessimistic, but i tell you, i could not be more proud to be in New Hampshire. Chris 30 seconds dr. Sherman i am not dour or pessimistic, i am a realist, and i understand what people are going through. Our education, our rating has dropped. We used to be number one, with massachusetts, now we are down to seven. Frank edlebrugh has said he was to expand educational freedom to all children in Public Schools. That money was meant for taxpayers, they were putting that together for our Public Schools. Not to get too religious and private schools without any oversight. That is not the way New Hampshire operates. Gov. Sununu we designed a system where if you are at 300 of the federal Poverty Level or below, you can take your money, find the path, i get a, your government first, im individual first, you can divide a path define a path that is best for your child. Dont we want everyone to have the same opportunities . Isnt this the concept of equity . We actually made it happen good thousands of families get to have the opportunity that they never were offered before. Chris that is time. Dr. Sherman no chemistry teacher in a Public School chris that is time. Lets go to political reporter kevin landrigan, property taxes. Kevin governor, taxpayers of holderness pay a tax rate of 6. 90, while plymouth residents pay twice that, 13. 19. Isnt it a failure of leadership that you have not offered a comprehensive plan to try and equalize the disparity many communities face in paying for Public Schools . Gov. Sununu only in the past years we have this massive Education Fund surplus. Im not going to speak for tom, but i think we all agree, huge opportunity to redo that formula. The formula is not working. Theres no doubt. Lets get together, the governor, legislature, stakeholders, School District, and find a better formula. That money is just sitting there. If we dont do anything about it, that find surplus is going to keep growing. We have about 1. 5 percent less kids per year. We have to change the formula and make sure that that the equity between towns is out lewdly there. Chris dr. Sherman. Dr. Sherman im glad to hear the governor for the first time saying lets also down at the table and solve the problem. The reality is we actually do have a blueprint. If we had a commission that looked at how to do this we have the capacity to do that. Education freedom accounts are right now 10 million over budget. They are projected to go much higher over budget, and that is going to threaten our ability to respond to the Public Education needs state wide without people having to pay increased property taxes. We have to look at this systematically, at the state level, and put our Public Schools first. Chris dr. Sherman, thank you so much. Governor sununu, thank you as well. We have reached the portion of the evening, we are going to go into closing statements. Each individual has 90 seconds we start with dr. Sherman. Dr. Sherman thank you. Thank you all for being here. Thank you to our hosts. It is clear there are stark differences between me and governor sununu. One of the fundamental differences is that i am running for governor for people like lisa, where the governors policies actually put her life at risk. Im running for the people in portsmouth who have to sleep in their car. Im running for the kids who are facing drug abuse, Mental Health, and not able to find any help. We know these are solvable problems. We know that if there is a governor who puts people before politics and focuses on the people of New Hampshire, we can do this. That is why i am running for governor, and i hope i have your vote on november 8. Chris governor sununu, 90 seconds. Gov. Sununu this is great. Thank you very much. Look, i love this state. I could not be more proud of where weve come. If you know who else loves this state . Everybody who is moving here. We are the only state really growing in population. Or young families moving in the never before. Those are facts, those are data, and that means we are doing something right. Doesnt mean we are perfect, absolutely not. Put the individual first. People want to be part of it. You look at the economic opportunities, the fact that we have some of the highest wages, the lowest poverty rates, we are the number one in the country for personal freedom, and we are able to create that balance, work across the line, and understand we are an independent state. I go back to what i said before, it is not about the government. It is about individuals. We have great opportunities to do that and to highlight it. Tom is very dour, i get it, he is angry, but this is awesome. This is the place to be. I have other governors call me, and they say, how are you doing this . How is that happening . How can you function like this . Why are you rank so good in this area and that area . We have some of the best Public School teachers in the country, and we are still creating opportunities for folks. It is about creating that next level of opportunity, and the rest of the nation is noticing. They