David Starr (New Hampshire)
David Starr (Republican Party) was a member of the New Hampshire State Senate, representing District 1. He assumed office on December 5, 2018. He left office on December 1, 2020.
Starr (Republican Party) ran for re-election to the New Hampshire State Senate to represent District 1. He lost in the Republican primary on September 8, 2020.
Committee assignments
2019-2020
Starr was assigned to the following committees:
Elections
2020
See also: New Hampshire State Senate elections, 2020
General election
General election for New Hampshire State Senate District 1
Erin Hennessey defeated Susan Ford in the general election for New Hampshire State Senate District 1 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Erin Hennessey (R) | 57.3 | 15,756 |
 | Susan Ford (D) | 42.7 | 11,741 | |
| Total votes: 27,497 | |||
 = 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. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for New Hampshire State Senate District 1
Susan Ford advanced from the Democratic primary for New Hampshire State Senate District 1 on September 8, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Susan Ford | 99.1 | 4,667 |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.9 | 41 | ||
| Total votes: 4,708 | |||
| = 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 State Senate District 1
Erin Hennessey defeated incumbent David Starr in the Republican primary for New Hampshire State Senate District 1 on September 8, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Erin Hennessey | 69.6 | 3,620 |
| David Starr | 30.2 | 1,571 | ||
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.2 | 9 | ||
| Total votes: 5,200 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
2018
General election
General election for New Hampshire State Senate District 1
David Starr defeated incumbent Jeff Woodburn in the general election for New Hampshire State Senate District 1 on November 6, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | David Starr (R) | 54.3 | 10,560 | |
 | Jeff Woodburn (D) | 44.9 | 8,739 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.8 | 148 | ||
| Total votes: 19,447 | |||
| = 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 State Senate District 1
Incumbent Jeff Woodburn advanced from the Democratic primary for New Hampshire State Senate District 1 on September 11, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Jeff Woodburn | 100.0 | 2,354 |
| Total votes: 2,354 | |||
| = 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 State Senate District 1
David Starr advanced from the Republican primary for New Hampshire State Senate District 1 on September 11, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | David Starr | 100.0 | 2,748 | |
| Total votes: 2,748 | |||
| = 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
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
David Starr did not complete Ballotpedia's 2020 Candidate Connection survey.
2018
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
David Starr completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Starr's responses.
What would be your top three priorities, if elected?
More jobs. Economic growth. To obtain same keep taxes low, reduce regulation. Remove state licensing requirements for all but doctors and lawyers. Mitigate the opioid crisis in NH. More drug rehab. Crack down on drug dealers. Provide more jobs, people are less likely to get hooked on drugs if they have a decent job. Constituent service. Listen to the problems of my constituents and do my best to fix them.
What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?
Reduce the cost of health care. NH could authorize any licensed insurance company in the other 49 states to offer health insurance in NH. Generate some healthy competition to bring down prices. Clamp down on malpractice abuse by lawyers. Keep state government small, mean and lean. Don't waste taxpayer's funds on frills like commuter rail.
Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?
If elected to the NH Senate I would certainly listen to incumbent state senators Bob Guida, Chuck Morse, and Jeb Bradley. These guys know what is going on and have the public's interest at heart.
Is there a book, essay, film, or something else you would recommend to someone who wants to understand your political philosophy?
Read my blog NewsNorthWoods.blogspot.com. Reading a few posts will give you the flavor of my thinking. I have been keeping the blog for nine years now.
What qualities do you possess that you believe would make you a successful officeholder?
I am an electrical engineer. Engineering is designing stuff that works, using stuff that you can get. It is also negotiation with the customer. The most important is to negotiate a product spec that the customer can afford, and that you can make work. And you have to truly negotiate, you cannot resort to name calling the way they do in the US Congress. If you call the customer names he goes away mad, and you don't get the job.
What do you believe are the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office?
Represent the views of my district, rather than merely my own views. We have a representative democracy. Unless the elected representatives support their voters and truly represent them, the entire system will fail.
What is your favorite holiday? Why?
Christmas of course. We see friends and family, we decorate the house, we sing carols, we go Christmas shopping, we gladden the hearts of children.
What is your favorite book? Why?
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings. It's adventure. It's got brave heroes, evil villains, magic, elves, fantastic scenery. Tolkien follows the classical format for an English novel, present the protagonist with a challenge. Have the protagonist attempt to master the challenge, have him fail a time or two, have a climax toward the end where it is do or die for the protagonist. I read the books to myself back in grade school and later I read them aloud to my own children. They loved them.
Do you believe that it’s beneficial for state legislators to have previous experience in government or politics?
Not really. Experience in the real world, business, the military, construction, medicine, engineering, and aviation is far more valuable.
What do you perceive to be your state’s greatest challenges over the next decade?
Creating enough jobs so that our young people can find work in NH when that graduate. Right now most of our graduates have to leave NH to find a job.
Do you believe it’s beneficial to build relationships with other legislators? Please explain your answer.
Yes. You need a majority in a legislature to pass anything. If nobody in the legislature likes you, you will not get anything passed.
What process do you favor for redistricting?
We could have a rule requiring districts to be reasonably compact. We could require that the longest distance across the district shall not exceed twice the shortest distance. That would get rid of those long and snake like districts. In NH we should eliminate the multi representative districts, districts in which a number of candidates all run at large. These districts require candidates to campaign over a big area, which is tedious and expensive for the candidates. Better would be to divide these populous districts into smaller pieces and have each piece represented by a single person. And we should get rid of those "flotarial" districts, where the candidates have to campaign across a dozRaen towns or more.
Is there a particular legislator, past or present, whom you want to model yourself after?
Ray Burton. He was executive counselor and Grafton county commissioner for years and years. Old Ray got up early, traveled over the district. He was out attending the dedication of a new bridge a couple of days before he died (of natural causes). He knew everybody. His constituent service was famous. His college aged interns complained to me that keeping up with Ray, a man then in his 70's, wore them out.
Are you interested in running for a different political office (for example, the U.S. Congress or governor) in the future?
No. NH state senator is as much as I can handle.
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.
2010
Starr failed to advance past the November 2, 2010, general election.
Starr was unopposed in the September 14 primary election. He faced incumbent Kathleen Taylor (D) in the November 2 general election.
| New Hampshire House of Representatives, Grafton 2 general election (2010) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidates | Votes | |||
 Lyle Bulis (R)
|
777 | |||
| David Starr (D) | 675 | |||
Scorecards
A scorecard evaluates a legislator’s voting record. Its purpose is to inform voters about the legislator’s political positions. Because scorecards have varying purposes and methodologies, each report should be considered on its own merits. For example, an advocacy group’s scorecard may assess a legislator’s voting record on one issue while a state newspaper’s scorecard may evaluate the voting record in its entirety.
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Click here for an overview of legislative scorecards in all 50 states. To contribute to the list of New Hampshire scorecards, email suggestions to editor@ballotpedia.org.
2020
In 2020, the New Hampshire State Legislature was in session from January 8 to June 30. The session was suspended from March 14 to June 11.
- Legislators are scored on their votes on economic issues.
- Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to economic issues.
- Legislators are scored on their votes on bills related to business issues.
- Legislators are scored based on if they voted with the Republican Party.
- Legislators are scored by the organization "on pro-liberty and anti-liberty roll call votes."
- Legislators are scored on their votes on bills supported or opposed by the organization.
- Legislators are scored on their votes on conservative issues.
2019
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2019, click [show]. |
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In 2019, the New Hampshire General Court was in session from January 2 through June 30.
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See also
2020 Elections
External links
Footnotes
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Jeff Woodburn (D) |
New Hampshire State Senate District 1 2018–2020 |
Succeeded by Erin Hennessey |
