New Hampshire Republican Senate candidate Don Bolduc’s home was the site of a fracas that turned “aggressive towards the police” and required a call for backup in 2018, according to an incident report and dispatch log obtained by The Daily Beast.
In December 2018, Bolduc’s wife, Sharon, placed a 911 call for a medical emergency. Dispatchers at the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Department listed a man in his fifties with chest pain and difficulty breathing. Bolduc, a retired brigadier general, was 56 at the time.
Upon arriving at Bolduc’s home, an officer from the Stratham Police Department called dispatch to say it was “going to be a verbal domestic” incident and requested backup.
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In the redacted incident report, the officer questioned an individual in front of the home who became “aggressive towards the police” and said, “I feel like I’m being interrogated in my own driveway.” The officer describes the rest of the family as “very cooperative” in the incident report.
Bolduc is the owner of the home, which was purchased in 2017, according to property records. The report redacted all identifying information, but the person is quoted referring to “my own driveway” at the same address of the Bolduc home. The Bolduc campaign did not dispute any of the interactions with police when provided with the incident report, and would only later say the candidate was not identified in the report and “is a decorated officer who always treats police with the utmost respect” and “was not ‘aggressive.’”
Attempts to calm the individual initially didn’t work, with the officer reporting their “demeanor did not change and was still very much on edge.”
The officer’s report also references two people in the home “were having an argument and it escalated,” and when he asked the individual in the driveway to explain, they only responded, “it just did.”
“I explained to [redacted] that I was unsure why [redacted] was being so aggressive towards the police as the rest of [redacted] family was very cooperative,” the officer said in the report.
The officer later called back to dispatch: “No crime. Peace restored.”
Six months later, Bolduc would officially declare his first Senate bid, where he was defeated in the 2020 New Hampshire Republican primary by Bryant “Corky” Messner, who would go on to lose to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen by more than 15 points.
Bolduc campaign spokesperson Kate Constantini said in a statement to The Daily Beast that the kerfuffle was the result of “brothers will be brothers” after one of Bolduc’s sons got into a car accident on the way home for Christmas. She did not address the confrontation with police.
“Brothers will be brothers and the next morning when the damage to the car was discovered, tensions were high between the boys,” Constantini said in the statement. “This incident was resolved between the brothers. Out of an abundance of caution the EMT’s were called when the General wasn’t feeling well trying to defuse the situation. Thankfully he was okay and the family enjoyed a lovely Christmas.”
The Stratham Police did not return a request for comment.
Although Bolduc’s personal Facebook page still lists him as an active patrolman with the Hampton Police Department, he is no longer an officer there.
The retired brigadier general has touted his support of police through both Senate campaigns, posing for a photo with a Salem Police officer last July. Bolduc wore a shirt with “GIVING UP ISN’T IN MY BLOOD” printed on it while holding a sign reading “DEFEND NOT DEFUND.”
Bolduc’s transition into the general election has been rocky. After spending months embracing Trump's election lies—he was one of 124 retired generals who signed a letter making the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen and that President Joe Biden was not legitimately elected— he reversed course days after winning the primary.
“I’ve done a lot of research on this and I have spent the past couple of 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 about this, that the election was not stolen,” Bolduc told Fox News.
Two weeks beforehand, he said he stood by the letter and would never abandon his election-denial stance.
“I signed a letter with 120 other generals and admirals, saying that Trump won the election, and damn it, I stand by my oath,” Bolduc said at a debate hosted by the far-right Government Integrity Project. “I’m not switching horses, baby.”
Bolduc also went after fellow Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu during the primary. He took credit for Sununu not entering the race by dissuading him through a supposed “a Sun Tzu-like campaign.” Bolduc also called the fifth most popular governor in the country a “communist Chinese sympathizer.”
A late endorsement from Sununu for Bolduc’s opponent wasn’t enough to turn the tides, and the pair ultimately made up on-camera after election night. Sununu offered a handshake, Bolduc offered a hug.
The night of his primary victory, Bolduc brandished a Halloween toy—King Leonidas’ shield from the movie 300—in a photo-op to cap off the night.
A Republican National Committee member told The Daily Beast that Bolduc has already been written off by most serious GOP operatives in the Granite State.
“He’s a liability anyway, I think he’s got enough other things,” the RNC member said, requesting anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
“If I were Maggie Hassan, I would take a vacation right about now.”
