Conservative Activist Testerman To Primary Gov. Sununu

CONCORD, NH — A longtime Republican activist has decided to run a long-shot primary to unseat New Hampshire's sitting GOP governor.

Karen Testerman, the Ward 2 city councilor in Franklin and a longtime political activist and radio talk show host, will file to run for governor in the Republican primary Wednesday at the Statehouse in Concord. Testerman, a former Republican county chairwoman and founder of Cornerstone Action, a nonprofit civic organization created to promote and protect families, faith, and freedom in New Hampshire, said incumbent Gov. Chris Sununu had lost his way in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

"We need to make New Hampshire free again," she said, "because he's drunk with power … (Sununu's) violating his oath of office; he's not serving the needs of New Hampshire and is putting the protesters ahead of the people who live here as well as the taxpayers."

Testerman said the state should already be put back to work, at this point, after health officials and new coronavirus data showed the worst of COVID-19 was limited. The governor's actions, she said, "told every breadwinner that they were nonessential." Taking time to allow churches to reopen was a similar slap at those Granite Staters of faith who want to attend services, she said. The future, Testerman added, was about the state's collective "spiritual health and mental health" — and not top-down protocols.

"You can go back to work if you wear that mask," she said. "You can only go back to work if you wash your hands. You can only go back to work if you social distance … it's madness."

An example, Testerman said, was protocols for hair stylists who were required to social distance while cutting hair, something that is very difficult to do, but they weren't allowed to blow dry a client's hair at the end of the cut — a protocol that seemed ridiculous, she said. She also challenged health experts who were watching infection and death rate models that were "proven over and over again to be wrong … to be over-estimators." Testerman said, at the very beginning, it was clear the COVID-19 virus could potentially be "very contagious and very detrimental" to hospitals and the state, as a whole. Everyone was put in an unprecedented lockdown to prepare, she continued. But state officials and the public realized quickly the models were wrong and the strategy was, too.

"(COVID-19 targeted) people of a certain age and health condition," Testerman said. "We should have said to the people, 'This is what the dangers are; this how we help each other.' We traded the fear of potential deaths for actual deaths that have occurred due to stress, suicide, drugs, alcohol, and not getting diagnosed. We concentrated on preparing the hospitals instead."

Testerman added humans need to also have exposure to microbes in order to build immunity into the body — which leads to a healthy immune system.

"None of this has been based on health," she said. "It's all been based on hype."

Testerman admitted that her race might be a long-shot in challenging a relatively popular governor but said she didn't think she was a sacrificial lamb. At the same time, she had nothing to lose.

"There is unrest out there," she said of the body politic in the Granite State.

Testerman wasn't considering a run but about a month ago, she started thinking about it. Whether she'll win or not, isn't the point. She will be giving "the frustrated public out there" a voice.

"And you know what? I've been around the state. I've participated in so many different ways. I have already proven myself. I have nothing to lose. I think the silent majority is hankering for somebody to run," Testerman said.

But the run, she said, was not a protest vote. She would like to work with both sides of the aisle to clear through RSAs that are not needed or have been sunsetted — as well as laws that need to be repealed. She said the Legislature should go back to a six-month session instead of a two-year session so that representatives would not be burdened with the commitment of serving.

Testerman said the worse part about the state of the state was public and elected official telling breadwinners that they were nonessential, she repeated. They "destroyed the economic health of Granite Staters" and were "destroying the American dream and pushing us in downward mobility," she said. Sununu, Testerman said, had "broken his oath" and made the state "not live free or die but live to comply."

Testerman added, "The word 'American' ends with 'I can' — and I believe we can make New Hampshire free again."

The governor's spokesman did not return an email requesting comment about Testerman's entry into the race at post time.

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