New Hampshire’s Democratic Governor John Lynch has officially announced that he will appoint Republican Bonnie Newman to the Senate seat of Judd Gregg, as soon as Gregg resigns to become Secretary of Commerce.
Gregg made it a clear condition for accepting the cabinet appointment that a Republican would be appointed to his seat, rather than let a Dem come in and potentially give the party a filibuster-proof majority. Thus Newman, Gregg’s former chief of staff and an ex-interim president of the University of New Hampshire, is getting the seat.
It is now also official that Newman is serving strictly as a caretaker — she will not run for the seat in 2010. This means that while Democrats haven’t gotten the seat immediately, the chance of picking it up later is actually pretty good. New Hampshire has realigned to the Dems in recent years, and an open-seat race has to be considered as leaning towards a Democratic takeover.
