Former governor John Lynch and Gary Hirshberg, Colin Van Ostern’s former boss, flipped their endorsement away from the Concord Democrat in favor of Maggie Goodlander in the primary for New Hampshire’s second congressional district.

Lynch, who served as governor from 2005 to 2013 and is still one of the biggest names in New Hampshire politics, announced over the weekend his change of heart.

“I respect Colin, but I don’t respect his campaign,” said Lynch, who said he’s known Van Ostern for a long time but the campaign’s negative nature has alienated him.

Hirshberg, the former CEO of Stonyfield Farms yogurt company, no longer appears on Van Ostern’s list of endorsements and instead filmed an endorsement video for Goodlander. Van Ostern lists his time at Stonyfield among his experience as a “business manager and executive.”

Lynch said his support began to dwindle when Van Ostern sent out a batch of mailers that attacked Goodlander.

He said he called Van Ostern and voiced his opposition but that the attacks on Goodlander’s record – questioning her dedication to New Hampshire and her stance on reproductive rights, for example – kept coming.

There was no singular moment that made him change his mind, Lynch said. It’s been a more gradual transformation.

“I became increasingly upset at the kind of campaign that Colin was running,” Lynch said. “I think it was sort of the tension and the nastiness that kept escalating that caused me to withdraw my support for Colin.”

Jordan Burns, Van Ostern’s campaign manager, said in a statement to the Monitor that the campaign is focused on sharing information they feel voters should know. She accused the Goodlander campaign of “purposefully misstating our response” to negative ads about Van Ostern.

Van Ostern is a former executive councilor and former president and chief operating officer of a Manchester-based venture capital firm; he’s running on his history of moving to New Hampshire 22 years ago, raising a family here and his public service in the state. Goodlander is a fourth-generation Granite Stater from Nashua and has spent her career serving in the Navy Reserves and working in all three branches of the federal government.

Goodlander said she’s running a positive campaign and is focused on elevating her own message and the issues.

An ad sponsored by Vote Vets, an organization that supports veterans running for office and is backing Goodlander, attacked Van Ostern’s business record and accuses him of accepting corporate PAC donations after pledging not to so.

On the “Media” page of Goodlander’s website is a directive that laid out the exact points of that ad. The practice is a common legal workaround where candidates publicly display messages they’d like advertisers to target; which is a way to skirt around campaign finance laws that prohibit candidates from coordinating directly with PACs.

“Van Ostern has a long history of taking checks from big corporations, despite calling corporate donations ‘bribes,’” Goodlander’s website states. “Previously, Van Ostern took over $50,000 from big corporations and businesses, including big pharmaceutical and health insurance companies, and exploited a loophole to take donations from real estate developers.”

Goodlander did not directly address the messaging on her website said recent experience is an important part of the race, which she compared to a job interview.

“I think it’s important for voters to take a look at what we’ve each been up to in the last five years,” Goodlander said. “We’ve made different choices professionally. The voters, who are ultimately the boss and the ones who are going to decide, should know about each of our experiences.”

Burns said Goodlander is the one who is distorting facts.

“Unfortunately, after dark money groups started all this with $1 million in deceptive attack ads against Colin to help Goodlander, her campaign is now purposefully misstating our response, so let’s be clear about the specific facts we have shared with voters: she has not lived or voted in this district for 16 years, she gave thousands of dollars to extreme Republicans when Trump was on the ballot in 2020, and she spent years of her life working in Washington for US Senators against the Democratic Party agenda. Those are facts and voters deserve to hear them.”

Charlotte Matherly is the statehouse reporter for the Concord Monitor and Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on X at @charmatherly, or send her an email at cmatherly@cmonitor.com.