Leading up to the state primary on Sept. 10, NHPR is speaking with the top candidates running in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District to learn more about where they stand on some of the biggest concerns we’ve heard from voters.
Read on for NHPR All Things Considered host Julia Furukawa’s interview with Holly Noveletsky. She is a nurse practitioner and business executive.
What questions do you have for the candidates running for Congress and governor in the 2024 election? What issues do you want them to address while seeking your vote? Share your thoughts here.
Editor’s note: This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Transcript
Many voters we've talked with are concerned about the high cost of living here in New Hampshire. What kinds of policies would you propose or support to make the state a more affordable place to live?
Well, there are two ways that we can bring down the cost of living. First, we need to stop federal spending. This overspending has really driven up the cost of living and caused inflation. So we need to stop spending on illegal immigration. We need to stop spending on such things as extra IRS agents. We need to reel in the spending that we do for the Ukrainian war. We need to stop spending money that we don't have and printing money.
The second half would be to become energy independent again. The cost of energy in New Hampshire is outrageous. My electric bill this month was $500, and I got a notice from Eversource that my energy is going to go up 16% by 2025. This is outrageous. It's a problem that's right at the kitchen table for most of us. So we need to go back to being energy independent. If we're energy independent, it will drive down the cost of transportation, drive down the cost of manufacturing, drive down the cost of goods, and it will really help at the kitchen table.
Policywise, what does energy independence look like to you?
All forms of energy. We need to go back to drilling. We need to have nuclear. We need to have all forms of energy, including green and renewables. But I don't believe in my grandchildren's lifetime that we'll be completely dependent on that. So we need to be energy independent, build the infrastructure for green and renewables, manage the transition to green and renewables [for] the portion of our energy that can be met, by not mandating, and not picking winners and losers. We need to have all forms.
Immigration and border policy are also a top concern with many voters as well. What's one specific immigration policy that you could point to that you want to support?
I want to close the border. We need to close the border. I've been up to the northern border twice, and last week I was talking with Border Patrol, just in the Swanton section, which is New York to Maine over our northern border. We've had 17,000 illegal immigrants come in just this year and the fiscal year is not over. That 17,000 represents more than the last 14 years combined in our northern border. We need to close both borders, north and south, and we need to stop incentivizing illegal immigration. We have a lot of citizens here that we need to take care of — our elderly, our homeless vets, our mentally ill. We have people that need to be taken care of, and we're spending critically short resources on people who have broken our law. For instance, in Massachusetts, they just took the Chelsea Soldier’s Home and one of the prisons, and rehabbed it for illegal immigrants to have housing. Meanwhile, our homeless vets are still living on the street. We can't be doing that.
(Editor’s Note: The U.S. Border Patrol’s Swanton Sector office patrols New Hampshire, Vermont and portions of eastern New York. Maine’s international border is patrolled by the U.S. Border Patrol’s Houlton Sector office. Along the 58-mile international border in New Hampshire, there were zero apprehensions of migrants made by federal authorities between January to May 2024, according to records obtained by New Hampshire’s ACLU from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In Vermont and portions of eastern New York, 15,612 people have been apprehended for suspected immigration violations from October 2023 to July 2024. Read more from NHPR here.)
(Editor's Note: New shelters opened this year for homeless and migrant families in Massachusetts, including one at the former Bay State Correctional Center, closed in 2015, and another at the former Chelsea Soldier’s Home, which had been vacant and was slated to be demolished. Read more from WBUR here and WGBH here.)
Although recent data have shown that illegal border crossings here in New Hampshire are at least over the past couple of months not happening, they haven't been documented. Is that a concern for you, here in our state?
That’s not true. I spoke with Border Patrol last week, and it's 17,000 just this year alone. And, that represents, as I said, the fiscal year and the fiscal year is not over. I spoke to them two months ago. It was 14,000. So it's going up every month. So that is a fallacy. We have had, as I said, 17,000 just this fiscal year alone, which is not complete, which is more than the last 14 years combined, on our northern border.
Republicans in Congress have voted along party lines to restrict access to abortion. Would you support any federal restrictions to abortion?
I think the Supreme Court got it right by bringing it back to the states. So you can't have it both ways. If it's a state level issue, you can't have federal mandates or laws. So I would not support a federal ban.
So Republicans in Congress have supported such things as penalties for doctors who provide access to abortion, or keeping states from using federal money for pregnancy crisis centers. If you were to be elected and your colleagues were in support of legislation like that, would you vote alongside them?
So the law had always been that there was no public money for abortion. Pregnancy crisis is different, but for abortion control, for abortion, there’s no public money for that. I would support no public money for abortion, not pregnancy crisis.
(Editor’s note: The Hyde Amendment, first passed in 1976, prohibits the use of federal funding for most abortions. There are exceptions in cases of rape, incest and life-threatening pregnancies. It does not limit states from using their public funding to cover abortions.)
We continue to hear from voters that they are tired of political polarization. Trust across party lines in Congress continues to dwindle. What about your background qualifies you to work with members of all parties to do what's best for New Hampshire?
So my dad used to say, in business, you no longer need an MBA because it's all about managing the personalities. My background: I'm a psychiatric and geriatric nurse practitioner. I've worked in dementia care for my whole career, and I've also been a business owner. I know what it takes to bring people to the table, and how to communicate effectively across a broad spectrum of people. Between my military experience, my nursing experience, and my business experience, where you bring people from a wide variety in a wide background to the table, because you have to be able to negotiate to keep business open. You need to be able to communicate effectively with people in [a] mental health crisis. In the military, you deal with people from a wide variety of backgrounds. I think that my background is uniquely set up for that.
And unity for you would look like conversations with folks across the aisle, trying to see eye to eye with each other, even if you're not generally on the same side of things?
Correct. Because everyone has to win. You know, you can't walk away from a negotiation or a conversation, and [have] one side feel like they won everything and one side feel like they've lost everything. Because we're going to go back to this ping pong, you know, swinging one side to the other. We need to be able to work together to move this country forward.
If you were to be elected, your first priority [would be]?
First priority is to close the border.
