MANCHESTER, N.H. — For Democrats toying with a run for president in 2028, campaigning alongside Rep. Chris Pappas in the New Hampshire Senate race has dual advantages: you can please the party and get your face out there in a key primary state (see Pete Buttigieg’s second-place finish in 2020). 

This year, visits from former Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and, yes, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have all featured “we need a fighter” language.

The Californians took it to a different level.

No more “when they go low, we go high,” Michelle Obama.

“We have to be ruthless,” Harris, a former senator from California, told a crowd in Manchester during the taping of a podcast. “I don’t mean cruel. I mean uncompromising. We have so much at stake.”

A week earlier, to a packed crowd in the well-to-do town of Exeter, Newsom spoke in similar terms.

“Donald Trump is ruthless, and we have to recognize the game of politics has changed,” the governor said. “And if things have changed, we need to change, and I say this with love: We have got to fight fire with fire. We’ve got to be tougher. We’ve got to be more aggressive.”

The pair are the most visible political figures from America’s most populous state. They’re also stumping around the country for midterm candidates as if they’re looking toward something bigger.

Newsom, though, told CNN he would not jump into the presidential race if Harris does, too.

“I wouldn’t do it to her. I wouldn’t do it to you. I wouldn’t waste everyone’s time,” he told Jake Tapper.

Newsom also pointed out that he shares many of the same supporters as Harris. Certainly, their “no more nice Democrats” message overlaps.

While the governor devoted much of his time in Exeter to outlining the specific instances of corruption allegedly committed by the Trump family, Harris dove deeper into policy.

She renewed her calls to increase the number of Supreme Court justices, to admit Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. as states if their residents agree, and to overturn Citizens United — a classic Democratic talking point referring to the Supreme Court case that struck down limits on independent political spending by businesses.

“There are some issues with the system as it is currently designed that are not conducive to implementing the will of the people,” Harris said.

The former vice president’s stark message also melded with a laid-back, casual tone.

She spoke of the first year and a half of Trump’s second term as a time when “many of us, whether we admit it or not, have been saying things to the television that we would not say where we pray,” adding that “some of us have been throwing things.”

She also recalled, in a similarly informal way, her reaction to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, which ended the federal right to an abortion.

After asking jokingly whether there were any children in the audience (there was one), she said, “I used a bad word.”

The audience laughed.

Newsom, in his own appearance, also cracked jokes at Trump’s expense, musing about the smell of Trump-branded cologne and bringing up other related merchandise.

So, can stern outrage and humor win votes?