Maggie Tamposi Goodlander gave birth to a stillborn son in a hotel bathtub on Easter.
Her fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition and died in the womb. Doctors recommended two days of surgery to remove him and an overnight stay at a hotel near the hospital. She was afraid that if she went into labor she would bleed.
But it took weeks to get an appointment. The procedure Ms. Goodlander needed is also commonly used for abortions later in her pregnancy. Doctors in the Northeast decided that Roe v. After the Wade decision, we were flooded with patients traveling north from states where abortion was banned.
The surgery took place a day late. Goodlander, 37, gave birth in 2023 at a hotel near the hospital, based on her experience taking hypnotism classes on YouTube. She says that harrowing experience exposed her in a deeply personal way to the new realities of post-Roe America and inspired her politically, joining the House of Representatives in her home state of New Hampshire to help her fight for abortion rights. He said it helped spark his desire to run for office. .
But there was another surprising element to her experience. Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, was also there in an unofficial capacity as her husband.
Entering New Hampshire’s second district race, Mr. Goodlander comes armed with a powerful story, an impeccable resume, and deep connections in Washington and New Hampshire. But she will have to navigate an almost unprecedented personal environment as she campaigns across western New Hampshire.
There are only a few instances where the spouse of a high-ranking government official has run for federal office, and in no case has that official been at the center of the war in Gaza, one of the most divisive issues in global and domestic politics.
Ms. Goodlander, who is 10 years younger than her husband, said the couple was used to professional duels. The two met at a security conference in Munich during the Obama administration. She worked under then-Connecticut Senator Joseph I. Lieberman and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the State Department.
Now, more than 12 years later, they have become one of the best-connected Democratic couples in government. While Mr. Sullivan served as a foreign policy advisor in two administrations, Mr. Goodlander served as a White House counselor, Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice, Senate foreign policy advisor, and Naval Reserve intelligence officer.
Former President Bill Clinton and Mrs. Clinton attended a 2015 wedding in New Haven, Connecticut, where Mrs. Clinton gave a reading. (Mrs. Clinton has appeared at fundraisers on the East Coast for the presidential campaign.) Mr. Sullivan’s sister, brother and sister-in-law all work in the Biden administration.
Recently, Ms. Goodlander spoke with several prominent Democrats and former President Barack Obama about running for office. Some of these private discussions were initiated by Mr. Sullivan asking officials if they would be willing to give advice to his wife, according to three people familiar with the conversations.
Experts said this type of interaction was legal to avoid violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activity while on the job, as long as it is done in Mr. Sullivan’s personal capacity.
“It doesn’t change anything just because his spouse happened to be running for federal office,” said Donald Sherman, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit watchdog group. “The fact that his wife is running for office is in the news, but it doesn’t change her legal obligations.”
Mr. Goodlander said his campaign would operate under “the highest ethical standards consistent with the law.” The couple met repeatedly with White House and National Security Council lawyers to get her detailed guidance on the Hatch Act before Ms. Goodlander launched her campaign. She flatly rejected suggestions that anyone who donated to her own campaign could be trying to influence the foreign policy of her husband and his administration.
“I am I have had my own career and will continue to have my own career,” she said. “I can’t be bribed and neither can Jake.”
However, the optics of these routes can be tricky. For example, Mr. Sullivan may attend a fundraiser for his wife, but his requests for donations are prohibited. He can wear a t-shirt supporting her campaign, but not in his workplace, the White House. He may place a bumper sticker on his car as long as the vehicle is not used for official purposes.
Mr. Sullivan is also preoccupied with an issue that has inflamed the Democratic base and dominated the campaign trail, with candidates across the country disrupted by protesters opposing the administration’s support for Israel. When asked her questions, Ms. Goodlander said she rejected any criticism of the Biden administration’s response to the war and was “really proud” of her husband.
So far, Mr. Sullivan has remained a largely invisible presence in Mr. Goodlander’s early campaign, appearing only briefly in a still shot included in his wife’s kickoff video, smiling broadly at his wife. Last weekend, as Mr. Sullivan flew to the Middle East for talks with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Goodlander attended the St. Mary’s Church in Nashua. Philip mingled with voters at the Greek Food Festival and gave the following speech: Awards dinner hosted by New Hampshire Young Democrats.
But their life in Washington also raised other questions. In 2018, the couple bought a house in Portsmouth, a beautiful beach town located in another New Hampshire congressional district, and Mr. Goodlander began teaching law at the University of New Hampshire and Dartmouth College. After winning the White House, Mr. Biden returned to Washington and served as a top official in the Justice Department’s antitrust division.
Just before announcing his bid earlier this month, Mr. Goodlander rented a home in Nashua, New Hampshire, where he grew up and the largest city in the region he hopes to represent in Congress. Her voting records show she last voted in the precinct and cast an absentee ballot in 2008, when she was an undergraduate at Yale University.
Mr. Goodlander dismissed concerns about his residency by citing his deep family roots in the state. Her grandfather, Samuel A. Tamposi, was the state’s largest commercial real estate developer, a limited partner of the Boston Red Sox and a major Republican donor. Her mother, Betty Tamposi, served as a Republican in the New Hampshire state legislature and is running for the same seat Ms. Goodlander is seeking to win. In that 1988 race, Mr. Tamposi was criticized by Senator Gordon Humphrey, a New Hampshire Republican, for comments he made referring to the younger Mr. Goodlander for putting “political ambitions ahead of the welfare of infants.”
“From my living room, I can see the hospital where I was born and the shoe factory where my great-grandfather worked,” Goodlander said. “My family has lived here for over a hundred years, so this has always been our home. I left home to serve my country, and I will return home to do the same.”
But Mr. Goodlander will face two Democratic opponents who have been involved in New Hampshire politics much more recently in the Sept. 10 primary. Both of them, like her, are running for office with a focus on the fight for abortion rights. One of them, state Sen. Becky Whitley, a two-term lawmaker who grew up in the district, graduated from law school and returned to the state to work as an environmental and disability rights attorney.
Her other opponent, Colin Van Ostern, is a well-established political activist in the state who served two terms on the New Hampshire Executive Committee and lost the 2016 gubernatorial election. Mr. from California. Van Ostern moved to New Hampshire. He participated and stayed in Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s first Senate campaign in 2001. He received the support of outgoing Democratic Congresswoman Ann McLane Kuster and more than 300 other local officials and activists.
Mr. When asked about Mr. Goodlander’s residency, Van Ostern said: “I wouldn’t trade our grassroots support and track record of real results for the people of this region for more than 20 years. It doesn’t matter how much money you have or how powerful your connections are.”
Some longtime New Hampshire political organizers suspect Mr. Goodlander’s time in Washington will be a major issue for New Hampshire voters.
“Her grandfather had just built Nashua. “He’s a Republican, but he’s done a lot of good things for New Hampshire.” She has long been a New Hampshire Democratic activist and state senator. said William Shaheen, who is married to Shaheen. “He’s from New Hampshire.”
