Here in New Hampshire, just like the rest of America, we’ve had a rough go of it these past six months. We’ve faced a global pandemic that has claimed more than 430 of our fellow Granite Staters, an economic downturn that has brought with it the loss of 11 million jobs nationwide, and an election season that threatens to tear our nation apart. For all the punditry I hear warning of the coming chaos and division, in New Hampshire, I know we’ll make it through.

Because as Granite Staters, even when we disagree, we walk together. We’ve got too much in common not to.

From my time as Finance Chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party and Chair of the New Hampshire House Ways and Means Committee to serving as Assistant Majority Leader in our State House and later as Assistant Secretary of State under President George H.W. Bush, I’ve been on the frontlines of crises and challenges that have confronted Granite Staters for four decades. For four decades, it’s been our state’s unique ability to work across party lines that’s kept us grounded and kept us moving forward. And while I know we’ll make it through whatever comes our way, there is one challenge we’ve never faced before: Our own president is trying to tear us apart.

When it comes to basic questions of governance-a workable COVID-19 plan, an economic response to an unprecedented recession, or even simply steady leadership to calm and heal our nation-sadly President Trump has utterly failed us.

I’m a lifelong Republican. But before anything else, I’m a Granite Stater and an American. I can’t fathom another four years of destructive partisanship and division. Donald Trump thinks leading by chaos and tearing us apart will win him a second term. He must not know New Hampshire.

As Granite Staters, we have already had so many demands placed on us. But because of President Trump’s failures to act, we are forced to step up in new ways to fill these voids. A lack of leadership in the White House has real-life consequences and families across the state are paying the price. We have to do more now just to look after our children and parents – just to make sure our families stay healthy. All the front line healthcare professionals who have attended to over 8,000 cases of Covid-19 deserve a depth of gratitude that takes us beyond words. All the moms and dads and grandparents who have tended to households with toddlers, children, and teenagers underfoot deserve medals of honor.

Still, half a year into this pandemic, tens of thousands of Granite Staters are still struggling to find and hold onto their jobs. For working women in New Hampshire, this unprecedented time can feel insurmountable. We’re taking on more and more responsibilities in this pandemic for our families.

But it doesn’t stop at President Trump’s lack of solutions to the public health crisis and economic recession, he’s actively trying to tear us apart. He’s politicized the virus every step of the way, separating red states from blue states, Republican cities from Democratic cities.

Even on a traditional Republican safeguard, like Social Security that 312,000 Granite Staters rely on, Donald Trump has pushed a payroll tax cut to eliminate the very source of Social Security funding.

Rather than lead us during this dark time for our country, Donald Trump has failed at every step of this calamity. And he has shirked his solemn presidential duties and responsibilities.

It’s time we had a president who will walk with us. And I know Joe Biden will, because Joe recognizes that there is nobility in the duty to care for all Americans from all the states in the United States of America.

He knows what it’s like to live as a single father of two young children. He knows what it’s like to make sacrifices, and to deeply care for your family’s well-being after the loss of a loved one. That’s why I trust Joe Biden, because he’s committed to the same belief we live by in New Hampshire: that above all else, we care for each other through joy and through sorrow.

On all the challenges we face today, as daunting as they are, Joe Biden will lead as a president should: by listening to science and making sure our front line workers have the necessary equipment they need to combat this public health crisis.

And by working to relieve the economic burden of this recession from the middle class, by refusing to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year and ensuring corporations and the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share.

Joe Biden will work to protect the Affordable Care Act that provides quality, affordable health care to 105,000 Granite Staters and critical protections for more than 570,000 Granite Staters living with preexisting conditions. Meanwhile, our current president is in court trying to invalidate our nation’s health care law and rip that healthcare away from families in the middle of a deadly pandemic. It’s just plain cruel.

We need to take care of each other – arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder – to get through our time of struggle.

With Joe Biden in the White House, our country will start to reflect what our state has done so well for so long: he will be a president for all Americans and he will work just as hard for those who didn’t vote for him as he does for those who did. We will have a president who you can be proud of – who even if you don’t agree with, you know will have your back.

In this moment, we need a leader who will join us on our journey out of this crisis, and lead for all Americans. I know Joe Biden will.

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