Conway Daily Sun: Pappas Continues FIGHT Tour with Stops Underscoring Harm from Sununu-Backed Health Care Cuts, Gas Prices, Tariff Taxes

CONWAY, N.H. — In case you missed it, the Conway Daily Sun recently highlighted a roundtable discussion with local health care advocates in Conway on the disastrous impacts of Donald Trump’s Sununu-backed cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. Pappas also visited Ambix Manufacturing in Albany where the company’s owners outlined the increased costs and uncertainty they’re grappling with thanks to Trump’s Sununu-backed War in Iran and tariff taxes.

The stops come as part of Pappas’s FIGHT  (Fighting Inflation, Gas Prices, Health Care Cuts, and Trump’s Tariffs) Tour — a series of events, discussions, and visits across New Hampshire with Granite State business owners, seniors, and families paying more across the board because of the Trump-Sununu agenda. 

Chris Pappas is running for Senate to lower costs for New Hampshire families and small businesses and create a freer, fairer future for Granite Staters. Trump-endorsed candidate John Sununu said he is running for Senate because this race is “important to President Trump’s agenda,” and he supports and has downplayed the worst parts of that agenda — including Trump’s war with Iran, Trump’s tariff taxes, and Trump’s cuts to health care. 

Read more below:

Conway Daily Sun: Pappas meets with health-care advocates

By Terry Leavitt, 9/28/26

  • U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) met last week with a small group of health-care advocates during a campaign stop in North Conway.
  • Pappas is running for U.S. Senate to replace U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who is stepping down after serving since 2009. Also running for the seat is former U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.), who served in the Senate from 2003-09.
  • Present at the meeting, which took place at Sap House Meadery in the middle of the afternoon last Thursday, were Carroll County Coalition for Public Health Executive Director Caleb Gilbert and Continuum of Care Facilitator Catalina Kirsch; state Rep. David Paige (D-Conway); and local resident Kerin Fiore, who said she was speaking as an individual but who also works in the health-care field.
  • The visit was a stop on the Pappas campaign’s FIGHT Tour leading up to the Nov. 3 election. Pappas explained FIGHT is an acronym for Fighting Inflation, Gas prices, Health-care cuts and Trump’s tariffs, “and anything else you want us to fight, because there’s a lot to fight right now.”
  • Focusing in on health care, Pappas noted the number of people who have dropped health insurance since ACA subsidies were cut in the Big Beautiful Bill, and said, “We have a broken system that is not meeting the needs of people, and it’s been getting worse. People have been losing coverage in New Hampshire. We have 17,000 people that have lost insurance coverage just over the last year alone.”
  • Gilbert and Kirsch led off the discussion with an explanation of what the Carroll County Coalition for Public Health is and problems that they are seeing regarding the health of people in Carroll County. Gilbert said: “We look at the health of the entire population in Carroll County and try to keep tabs on the conditions that are either detrimental to people’s health or improve their health.”
  • Gilbert said clinical care makes up about 20 percent of a person’s overall health and well-being — a critical component of health, but not the only one. In addition, he said, there are what are called the social determinants of health, things like food, housing and transportation, and noted that many people in Carroll County have problems meeting basic needs and often have to make choices between seeing a doctor and buying medicine or putting food on the table and gas in their car to get to work.
  • “Every table that we go to when we’re trying to talk about access to health, the topics of transportation always come up, and we’re also often being pulled into conversations about food access and food security,” Kirsch said. “I can show you Facebook groups like the MWV Moms Facebook group — who are moms who just are from this area who are saying, ‘I’ve run out of food. Can somebody help me?’ There’s no reason for that to be happening.”
  • Gilbert and Kirsh also noted that the coalition will not be able to provide in-school influenza vaccination clinics — which provide between 500 and 1,000 shots per year — this year because funding for that has been cut.
  • They noted the loss of Medicaid coverage that will affect not only individuals who need help but small rural hospitals that receive reimbursements.
  • Fiore, an occupational therapist, agreed with Gilbert and Kirsch. “So much of what they’ve said resonates with what I do for work, but also in my own personal family,” she said. “The thing that I keep thinking about is that downstream effect, because there are services that families can access because of Medicaid. If you take those away, then there’s going to be more cost and bigger costs down the line. … When I think of my own family, my own child, Medicaid is a thing that is keeping her a functioning part of our community.”
  • Pappas said he has been meeting with people around the state to hear about their concerns as he campaigns for office, just as he has done over the past seven years as a congressman.
  • “The first order of business for someone who is in elected office is to listen,” he said. “And there needs to be a whole lot more listening going on in our politics right now. We need to understand people’s lived experiences and have that influence where we go on the policy side of things. Unfortunately, we’re seeing impacts of pretty devastating cuts in Washington … And I think we shouldn’t accept it. We need to continue to fight back against that and be moving in a direction of making sure people get the right care and that it’s affordable. And we’re all better off as a society when that happens,” Pappas said

Conway Daily Sun: Pappas at Ambix: Trump has hurt small manufacturers

By Daymond Steer, 9/28/26

  • Rising shipping, labor and material costs have forced Ambix Manufacturing to recently raise prices for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, company leaders told U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas during a visit Thursday focused on tariffs, fuel costs and workforce shortages.
  • Pappas, a Democrat who represents New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, and is running for U.S. Senate, stopped at the Albany plastics manufacturer to hear how economic pressures have affected them.
  • “Small businesses have been dealing with so much uncertainty as a result of tariffs and trade policy and higher fuel prices,” Pappas said. He said tariffs are especially difficult for small manufacturers when there is no practical domestic alternative.
  • “That’s why this is nuts because it’s one thing if you had opportunities to source things locally and, you know, could pivot in that direction, but you really don’t,” Pappas said. “You’re just adding cost to your business, to your customers, for something that you can’t get here locally.”
  • The war in Iran has made things even worse, the congressman said.
  • “Even if this war ends tomorrow, we’re looking at a dislocation in energy markets for months to come, and potentially years. And we’ve already endured seven months of this,” said Pappas. “So our country is in a really tough spot right now.”
  • Ambix President Melissa Florio and founder Jeff Nicoll, who are husband and wife, said the company remains busy, particularly because its largest market is power distribution. Nicoll said Ambix makes about 11 million parts a year at the Albany facility.
  • He said the company has seen an uptick in that work this year because of electrical infrastructure projects and storm-related repairs. Some machines run nearly around the clock during the week, he said, and the company employs about a dozen people.
  • But costs have climbed sharply.
  • Florio said the company recently raised prices after trying for months to absorb increases from suppliers. “We kept thinking it might get better. It kept getting worse,” she said.
  • One recent material order cost 60 cents more per pound than the company’s previous order, which amounts to a 30 percent increase Florio and Nicoll said. Surcharges have also increased, while longer lead times have made production planning more difficult. “It just ripples everywhere,” Florio said. “That’s why we finally have to raise our prices, which we never like to do.”
  • Tariffs have created another challenge because Ambix has some of its molds and tooling made overseas. Nicoll said the company had already agreed to fixed prices with customers on some projects when new tariffs took effect, leaving Ambix to absorb costs it had not anticipated, the couple said.
  • “I wound up losing money on the tooling,” Nicoll said.
  • Florio said much of Ambix’s tooling is made in China, in part because domestic toolmakers who once handled that type of work have retired or are booked with long-term projects.
  • Pappas said he has legislation to exempt small businesses from certain tariffs and refund tariffs already paid.
  • “It makes no sense to put the burden on our main street businesses, our small manufacturers, with this haphazard, reckless trade policy,” he said.
  • Ambix is trying to add workers. Florio said the company actively searches for employees and has worked with adult education and other organizations to find applicants. She said housing and child-care costs are keeping people out of the workforce.
  • Despite the pressures, the company is expanding its manufacturing space. Nicoll said solar panels at the facility offset about 55 percent of Ambix’s electricity use.
  • Florio said the problems Ambix faces are not unique to plastics manufacturers. “Whatever your raw material is, whether it’s fabric or steel, we’re all in the same boat as manufacturers,” she said.

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