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Benjamin Geiger
Benjamin Geiger (Democratic Party) ran for election to the New Hampshire House of Representatives to represent Rockingham 4. He lost in the general election on November 6, 2018.
Geiger completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2018. Click here to read the survey answers.
Elections
2018
General election
General election for New Hampshire House of Representatives Rockingham 4 (5 seats)
The following candidates ran in the general election for New Hampshire House of Representatives Rockingham 4 on November 6, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Chris True (R) | 12.6 | 4,416 |
| ✔ |  | Jess Edwards (R)  | 12.5 | 4,371 |
| ✔ | Becky Owens (R) | 12.1 | 4,236 | |
| ✔ |  | Jason Osborne (R) | 11.7 | 4,093 |
| ✔ |  | Tony Piemonte (R) | 11.3 | 3,948 |
| Cynthia Herman (D) | 8.4 | 2,934 | ||
 | Todd Bedard (D) | 8.1 | 2,834 | |
| Patrick McLaughlin (D) | 8.0 | 2,784 | ||
| Stephen D'Angelo (D) | 7.7 | 2,698 | ||
| Benjamin Geiger (D) | 7.5 | 2,622 | ||
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.0 | 4 | ||
| Total votes: 34,940 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for New Hampshire House of Representatives Rockingham 4 (5 seats)
The following candidates ran in the Democratic primary for New Hampshire House of Representatives Rockingham 4 on September 11, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Cynthia Herman | 21.7 | 892 | |
| ✔ | Patrick McLaughlin | 17.6 | 724 | |
| ✔ | | Todd Bedard | 16.7 | 686 |
| ✔ | Benjamin Geiger | 14.8 | 610 | |
| ✔ | Stephen D'Angelo | 14.6 | 601 | |
| Russell Norman | 14.5 | 596 | ||
| Total votes: 4,109 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary election
Republican primary for New Hampshire House of Representatives Rockingham 4 (5 seats)
The following candidates ran in the Republican primary for New Hampshire House of Representatives Rockingham 4 on September 11, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Chris True | 19.6 | 1,348 |
| ✔ | | Jess Edwards | 18.1 | 1,249 |
| ✔ | | Jason Osborne | 17.4 | 1,198 |
| ✔ | Becky Owens | 13.6 | 937 | |
| ✔ | | Tony Piemonte | 13.2 | 910 |
| James Devine | 9.9 | 683 | ||
| David Smiley | 8.2 | 564 | ||
| Total votes: 6,889 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign themes
2018
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Benjamin Geiger completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Geiger's responses.
What would be your top three priorities, if elected?
Ensure appropriate funding of public education by the state. Including working on lower the cost of all post-high school education options. Work to incentivise energy storage for the grid to improve our ability to use green energy. Stop attacks on the rights of minority citizens such as the LGBTQ+ community.
What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?
The energy grid is one of my more passionate endeavors, partly due to knowledge of how the system works, partly due to how I can see long term reduction in carbon emissions through green technologies that have to be coupled with energy storage to make it viable. I also have the issue of I am equally passionate about education. I know less about the system as a whole but would like to work with education experts to see what can be done to better prepare the children of the state, one thing I would like to see more is critical thinking skills added to the curriculum. I do think anytime we take money away from schools in any form it tends to lead directly to a reduction in teaching staff.
What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?
Ability to look at data and form an opinion to fit the data, not use your opinion to look for data. People from both parties tend to reject the informed opinions of experts because they think they know.
What legacy would you like to leave?
Better prepared children for the future, a cleaner and more robust energy system, and a more understanding society.
What happened on your most awkward date?
That would be too awkward to share... with anymore.
What is your favorite holiday? Why?
This is hard... Halloween probably. I like the idea that everyone is excited about witches and dressing up when 100-200 years ago we were burning people for that. It's great to see how far we have come as a society.
What is your favorite book? Why?
This is easy, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. There is nothing I enjoy more than to delve into a well developed world, where there are well thought out laws of "physics" and get a great exploration of that.
What is your favorite thing in your home or apartment? Why?
My cats... because cats? Also the fact I have solar panels on my place and generate enough energy to offset my entire consumption plus some.
Do you believe that it’s beneficial for state legislators to have previous experience in government or politics?
Sometimes, you can become to steeped in the politics side and create an echo chamber and forget the people you are supposed to represent. But at the same time you know how to get things done if you have experience and so you can be more effective in trying to get what you want done.
What process do you favor for redistricting?
A non-partisan flow, trying to ensure districts that are politically competitive. For example instead of one highly democratic district and one highly republican one, if possible without breaking up towns, try to have two districts that are equally both.
Are you interested in running for a different political office (for example, the U.S. Congress or governor) in the future?
No! I am running from a sense of I want to make my town and state better, while weighing that against my fear of public speaking. Higher offices would definitely require more public speaking which I am not comfortable with. As well as I like what I do for work, and don't want to stop that.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
- State legislative elections, 2018
- New Hampshire House of Representatives elections, 2018
- New Hampshire House of Representatives
External links
Footnotes
