“Don Bolduc isn’t making a full about-face, but the Republican nominee for Senate in New Hampshire can’t seem to stop shifting his position about whether the 2020 presidential election was legitimate,” the AP reports.

“The retired Army general claimed during his primary campaign that the White House race was stolen from former President Donald Trump. Then, after Bolduc won the Sept. 13 vote, he said it wasn’t. By Monday, at a town hall in Hudson, he said he doesn’t know what happened.”

Sen. Maggie Hassan’s (D-NH) campaign manager “is warning donors and supporters that it may be in more trouble than polling suggests, disputing the idea GOP challenger Don Bolduc can easily be defeated, according to a copy of an email sent to donors,” Axios reports.

Key takeaway from the memo: “Our own internal polling shows that Don Bolduc is quickly consolidating the Republican base and is rapidly making up ground.”

Playbook: “It’s an example of how some Democrats are wary of overconfidence against flawed GOP competition. It may also represent one campaign’s effort to keep spending from being diverted to other races.”

A new Suffolk University poll in New Hampshire finds Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) leading challenger Don Bolduc (R), 50% to 41%.

Key finding: “New Hampshire voters are anxious about inflation and dissatisfied with President Biden’s leadership, the poll found. But in a year when the US Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion, and worries about the future of American democracy abound, women and independents appear to be breaking strongly for Hassan, whose Republican rival has called himself ‘unapologetically pro-life’ and has questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election. Independent women favored Hassan over Bolduc 65% to 19%.”

New York Times: “All through his primary, Don Bolduc, a far-right Senate candidate in New Hampshire, said the 2020 election was stolen. A day after his victory was called, he reversed course. But eight days after that?”

“He indicated on a podcast that he had not completely turned his back on the stolen-election movement, conveying that he found it unclear why his election-denial message had not been resonating with voters in the battleground state.”

Said Bolduc: “The narrative that the election was stolen, it does not fly up here in New Hampshire for whatever reason.”

“Then he renewed his false claim there had been fraud in the election.”

“She just wants to hang on with dear life. Well, guess what? Your views are not consistent with the average Granite Stater, number one. Number two, get over it. This is about the economy.”

— New Hampshire U.S. Senate candidate Don Bolduc (R), when asked by WMUR about Sen. Maggie Hassan’s (D-NH) focus on abortion rights.

A new Emerson College poll in New Hampshire finds Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) with an 11-point lead over newly-nominated Donald Bolduc (R), leading 51% to 40%.

“Like a driver making a screeching U-turn, Don Bolduc, the Republican Senate nominee in New Hampshire, pivoted on Thursday from his primary race to the general election, saying he had ‘come to the conclusion’ that the 2020 presidential election ‘was not stolen,’ after he had spent more than a year claiming it was,” the New York Times reports.

Said Bolduc: “I’ve done a lot of research on this, and I’ve spent the past couple weeks talking to Granite Staters all over the state from every party, and I have come to the conclusion — and I want to be definitive on this — the election was not stolen.”

“New Hampshire state Senate President Chuck Morse (R) conceded the Republican Senate primary Wednesday morning to Don Bolduc (R), a retired Army brigadier general and election denier who has embraced former President Donald Trump’s approach to politics — a letdown for the GOP establishment in the race to take on Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH),” CNN reports.

“Bolduc joins a list of candidates national Republicans worry won’t be able to appeal to the broader November electorate.”

John Avlon: What does this race tell us about the state of the GOP?

“An intramural Republican fight over New Hampshire’s nominee for the Senate entered its final day on Monday with Gov. Chris Sununu and national Republicans working furiously to try to block a Trump-style 2020 election denier, Don Bolduc, whom they perceive as too extreme to win in November,” the New York Times reports.

“As former President Donald Trump remained on the sidelines — despite private appeals from a more mainstream Republican, Chuck Morse, the president of the State Senate, for Mr. Trump to throw him his support — Mr. Bolduc appeared in strong position to get on the ballot against Senator Maggie Hassan, one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the evenly divided chamber.”

“A leading super PAC that backs Senate Republicans says it will spend $23 million to buy TV time in the small but crucial battleground state of New Hampshire as the group targets Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan in a key contest,” Fox News reports.

A new University of New Hampshire poll finds Don Bolduc (R) leading Chuck Morse (R) in the race for the 2022 Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate, 43% to 22%, with other candidates far behind.

Tim Miller: “Governor Sununu took a pass on the race, not being particularly keen on jobs where rioters target his office if he doesn’t submit to a game show host’s autocratic delusions, leaving the Republican primary wide open.”

“The man who has filled that vacuum is emblematic of the ‘candidate quality’ issues that sad turtle Mitch recently alluded to.”

“The frontrunner is Brigadier General Don Bolduc. He is not, like Sununu, a popular mainstream R with a track record of success; he’s an absolute loon who lost a Senate primary in 2020 and is a favorite in Bannon’s War Room where he is referred to only as ‘The General,’ as if he were some kind of exiled Kazak communist who Bannon is demanding be released from prison.”

“Which happens to be exactly the profile Republican primary voters are looking for this year.”

“Republican candidates in a New Hampshire Senate primary debate over the weekend raced to the right, casting doubt on the 2020 election and discrediting the FBI after the recent search of former President Donald Trump’s home,” NBC News reports.

“Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) was initially seen as one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats up for re-election this year. But as New Hampshire’s Sept. 13 primary draws closer, there’s still no clear Republican frontrunner to take her on in November,” Axios reports.

“The GOP establishment’s failure to coalesce around one viable candidate after its initial favorite — New Hampshire’s current Gov. Chris Sununu — decided not to enter the race has helped clear the way for Democratic incumbent.”

A new Granite State poll in New Hampshire finds Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) is in statistical ties with four possible Republican challengers.

Sen. Maggie Hassan’s (D-NH) reelection campaign announced a $13 million reservation in fall airtime ahead of November’s midterm elections, The Hill reports.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) told the Washington Examiner that was on the verge of running for Senate and but then he talked it over with Republican senators.

Said Sununu: “They were all, for the most part, content with the speed at which they weren’t doing anything. It was very clear that we just have to hold the line for two years. OK, so I’m just going to be a roadblock for two years. That’s not what I do.”

Retired Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc (R) called Gov. Chris Sununu (R) a “Chinese Communist sympathizer” whose family business “supports terrorism,” and claimed he drove the governor from the U.S. Senate race, New Hampshire Journal reports.

Said Bolduc: “I derailed Gov. Sununu from running for Senate. Let’s face it — the most powerful political family in New Hampshire made a decision not to run against a political outsider for the United States Senate.”

He added: “We ran a Sun Tzu-like campaign that brought to the forefront all of his flaws for serving at the national level as a U.S. Senator. And he surprised all of his supporters because in the 11th hour, he looked at the polls and there was no guarantee could beat Bolduc. And he can’t afford a loss based on his future ambitions in the political arena.”