'Florida Man' Runs For U.S. Senate In New Hampshire

By Damien Fisher, NH Journal

To run for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire, all you need is $100 filing fee and a dream.

And Republican Charlie Hough of Peterborough has a big one. President of the United States.

Contacted by NHJournal about getting into the Senate primary, Hough told NHJournal there is no reason he can’t go all the way to the White House.

“I’m a bigger a**hole than Trump, but I have a f**king brain.”

If Hough succeeds in getting elected to the U.S. Senate, it will not be his first time performing government service. He has been arrested on multiple charges in Florida, where he was living earlier this spring.

Charlie Hough

“I was in jail for four days in Miami-Dade, and it sucked,” Hough said.

Among the charges: driving under the influence, drug possession, and a trespassing charge for allegedly being naked in a hot tub at the wrong time. It’s a record that could make him the first “Florida Man” to run for office in New Hampshire.

Or perhaps a “Maine Guy.”

Hough, 61, is presenting an identity and issues set that echoes Democrat Graham Platner, the progressive bomb-thrower and “oyster farmer” running against U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

He calls himself a volunteer firefighter and a cranberry farmer on his campaign website, and he supports tax hikes for the rich.

Hough also praises Jeanne Shaheen, who he says “has done a great job as U.S. senator for New Hampshire representing District 1.”

Getting past veteran Republican candidates Scott Brown and John E. Sununu in the primary won’t be easy, starting with Hough’s permanent Florida address listed in court records.

Hough told NHJournal he is full steam ahead with his New Hampshire campaign and plans to actually come to the state as soon to get things going. His stay in Florida with his brother became necessary due to a disagreement with his wife, he said.

“She threw my ass out.”

Hough said the source of his many recent encounters with Sunshine State law enforcement is the result of a bipolar disorder diagnosis and his own special way of talking to cops.

“I like to f**k around with police,” Hough said.

And now he is finding out.

Court records show Hough was arrested May 8 at a casino in Miami Gardens for cocaine possession. Hough was becoming disruptive while playing poker at the Miccosukee Casino and Gaming Center, and when tribal police asked him to identify himself, a bag of cocaine fell out of his pocket, according to the report.

As a Miami-Dade police officer called to the scene was speaking to tribal police, Hough let the officers know he had cocaine, the report states.

“Mr. Hough freely and voluntarily stated that he had cocaine in his pocket,” the report states.

Hough has a somewhat convoluted explanation for the cocaine. He claims he was thrown out of a different casino earlier that night over suspicions he was cheating after winning $40,000 at blackjack.

“They thought I was counting cards, but I wasn’t. I have a method. I’m not going to tell you what it is, but it works,” Hough said.

When Hough got to the second casino, he decided to join a poker table. Hough says he bragged about winning $40,000 at the table.

“I was stupid, I was a f**king jerk,” Hough said.

One of the other poker players got Hough drunk and slipped a drug into one of his drinks, he told NHJournal. When he came to, he realized his money was gone, there was cocaine in his pocket, and he was sexually propositioning a police officer, he said.

Those additional details do not appear in the police report.

Hough was arrested twice in March, once for trespassing his way into a hot tub after hours. Hough claims he was naked at the time of the arrest, but the police report indicates he was wearing shorts. That same month, he was arrested for driving under the influence, which Hough chalks up to malice from Lee County Sheriff’s deputies.

“I was set up on that. I was arrested for intending to drive drunk,” Hough said.

Hough told NHJournal he was in his parked “$300,000 Corvette” calling for an Uber ride when police encountered him. That is when Hough turned on his own special charm with the deputy.

“I told him, ‘I’m not drunk, you’re a dick!’”

Hough is open about his bipolar disorder, and he insists that he is fine, criminal cases notwithstanding. He claims, without evidence, that figures like British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President John F. Kennedy were bipolar.

“I went to Yale, so I’m smart, but the wheels in my brain turn more slowly than other people’s. Being bipolar shouldn’t mean you can’t be in a senior office, a senator, or even a president,” he said.

But Hough’s erratic behavior is likely to hold him back. A Peterborough source told NHJournal on background that a local fundraiser for Hough’s campaign was recently canceled by the host, a local business owner.

Hough remains confident he will make it to the Senate and eventually get elected president. He is already showing some growing political savvy—he asked NHJournal to remove the many F-bombs from his on-the-record comments.

NHJournal politely declined.

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.