New Hampshire has been ground zero for the opioid crisis for years – funerals, shattered families, parents burying kids who never had a chance.
Now the woman who stood before the state legislature and defended the drug that started it all wants to run the place.
Her name is Cinde Warmington, and on Wednesday she launched her second bid for governor – and every New Hampshire family who lost someone to OxyContin deserves to know exactly what she said about that drug.
She Called It a "Miracle"
In 2002, Warmington wasn't a concerned grandmother or a public health advocate.
She was a paid lobbyist for Purdue Pharma – the company that deliberately lied to America about OxyContin's addictive potential and ultimately paid billions in settlements to states it helped devastate.
And she was good at her job.
Standing before a New Hampshire Senate committee, Warmington argued against legislation that would have restricted OxyContin prescriptions, telling lawmakers the pill "has very few side effects."
She called it "a miracle drug for many patients."
She was one of only two people in the entire state who showed up to oppose that bill.
The Senate voted 23-0 to pass the restrictions anyway.
Democrats Are Running the Same Play Again
Warmington lost the 2024 Democratic primary to former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig by about 7,000 votes – and the Purdue Pharma issue followed her every step of that race.
Craig used it against her in attack ads.
Opioid survivors held press conferences calling on her to quit.
An online petition signed by nearly 100 recovery advocates accused her of directly contributing to the crisis for personal profit.
Now she's back, and so is every bit of it.
The Ayotte campaign didn't wait five minutes – they recirculated Craig's own 2024 attack ads before lunch.
"Cinde Warmington spent her career as a lobbyist for the opioid industry, promoting OxyContin and defending New England's most notorious pill mill," said Ayotte spokesman John Corbett.
"She is absolutely disqualified from serving as our Governor."
Even Warmington's Democratic primary opponent Jon Kiper piled on within hours, pointing out she took thousands in campaign donations from the very pain clinics that overprescribed her "miracle drug."
Day one of her comeback ended with her own party calling her unfit right alongside the Republicans.
New Hampshire's Democratic Governor Graveyard
Cook Political Report rates this race "likely Republican."
Ayotte won in 2024 by more than 9 points – in a state Kamala Harris carried by nearly 3.
Before Ayotte, New Hampshire Democrats tried to beat Chris Sununu four times across eight years and lost every single time – by margins that kept getting worse.
Van Ostern lost by 2 in 2016. Molly Kelly lost by 7 in 2018. Dan Feltes lost by 32 in 2020. Tom Sherman lost by 15 in 2022.
The state has sent an all-Democratic delegation to Congress for nearly a decade while Republicans have held the governorship the entire time.
New Hampshire voters split their tickets on purpose.
Democrats keep thinking they've found the candidate who finally cracks that code.
They haven't.
Warmington's launch video attacked Ayotte for not standing up hard enough to Trump on an ICE processing facility in Merrimack.
What Warmington didn't mention: Ayotte has already clashed publicly with the Trump administration over that warehouse – demanding transparency and forcing the resignation of a state official who went behind her back to coordinate with Washington.
Ayotte is already doing the thing Warmington is promising to do.
She's just doing it without the Purdue Pharma baggage.
New Hampshire Democrats are running a candidate who lost a Democratic primary – largely over the opioid issue – against a Republican incumbent with a 50-percent approval rating in a state that hasn't elected a Democratic governor in over a decade.
The woman who called OxyContin a miracle drug wants to run a state where it killed people's kids.
Sources:
- John Corbett (Ayotte campaign spokesman), statement, NBC Boston, February 18, 2026.
- Lisa Kashinsky and Kelly Garrity, "New Hampshire's GOP Gov. Kelly Ayotte draws her first major challenger," Politico, February 18, 2026.
- Steven Porter, "Cinde Warmington launches Democratic campaign for N.H. governor," Boston Globe, February 18, 2026.
- "Cinde Warmington Is Running on the Opioid Epidemic in New Hampshire. She Lobbied for the Company Behind It," The Daily Beast, September 18, 2024.
- "In 2002, Warmington worked as lobbyist for Big Pharma," Union Leader / Yahoo News, June 13, 2023.
- "Granite Staters Divided on Ayotte Second Term," UNH Survey Center, June 26, 2025.
- "2026 New Hampshire gubernatorial election," Wikipedia, updated February 2026.
