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IN COMMITMENT 20-20 TONIGHT -- DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE ANDREW YANG HAS PICKED UP THE ENDORSEMENT OF FORMER PORTSMOUTH MAYOR AND TWO- TIME CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR STEVE MARCHAND. MARCHAND SAYS AFTER SPENDING TIME WITH MANY OF THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES, YANG STOOD OUT TO HIM. HE PRAISED THE ENTREPRENEUR’S POLICY PROPOSALS. AND SAYS HE THINKS YANG CAN DO WELL IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 1:31-1:45 HE’S THE KIND OF OUTSIDER THAT THE MORE PEOPLE HEAR ABOUT HIM, THE MORE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO SUPPORT ANDREW YANG . I THINK IF PEOPLE LEARN A FRACTION OF WHAT I’VE ALREADY LEARNED ABOUT ANDREW YANG, THEY’RE GOING TO BECOME SUPPORTERS, AND THERE’S A LOT OF RUNWAY UNTIL DECISION DAY IN 2020. MARCHAND IS ALSO JOINING YANG’S CAMPAIGN AS A SENIOR ADVISER.

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Former two-time Democratic candidate for governor Steve Marchand has been traveling the state extensively with presidential candidates for the past several months.And, now, with the first-in-the-nation presidential primary 10 months away, Marchand has signed on with entrepreneur and nonprofit founder Andrew Yang.WMUR has learned that Marchand will serve as senior New Hampshire campaign adviser and as an adviser to Yang's national presidential campaign.The campaign also announced that Khrystina Snell, who was Marchand’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign manager and previously worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, has been named New Hampshire state director.Marchand said in an interview that in his paid consulting positions, he will have a major role in Yang’s state campaign strategy and also contribute his advice to national strategy.The former mayor of Portsmouth spent much time campaigning throughout the state when he ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2016 and 2018. He endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders over Clinton in the 2016 presidential primary.“I’ve had the chance to spend quality time with the majority of the field, and it’s a uniquely deep field of candidates,” Marchand said.He said Yang began to impress him when they met in December 2018 at the Bridge Café in Manchester. He said he was familiar with and liked Yang’s policies, particularly his call for a $1,000-a-month “freedom dividend,” which is a universal basic income plan for all Americans that would be funded by a value-added tax.“We’re both first generation Americans and almost the same age, we both have two kids and we’re both data-driven in the way we try to tackle problems,” Marchand said. “I think he’s got a great personality, a great sense of humor and I appreciate his candor. We hit it off personally.”Marchand said that in recent weeks, he and Yang visited with voters West Stewartstown, Colebrook and Plymouth, and went snowmobiling in Bartlett.“He is running an important campaign with an important message that I think is only beginning to be properly assessed at the national level,” Marchand said. “And if you look at national polling, despite being covered by the media less than any of the top 12 or 15 candidates, he has continued to creep up in the polls.”Marchand cited an Emerson College poll, released Monday, that showed Yang tied for seventh place with 3 percent, trailing Sanders, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Beto O’Rourke, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, but ahead of several current or former elected officials, such as Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Tim Ryan, John Delaney and John Hickenlooper.“I’ve had a chance to see what kind of crowds Andrew and other candidates have drawn in New Hampshire,” Marchand said. “And one thing I can say is the diversity of the crowds for Andrew are unlike any I’ve seen for any other candidate. They are strong progressive Democrats, young voters, disaffected Trump voters and people who have never been motivated to vote before. They all leave his events excited and supportive.”“We need a single message and messenger who can build this coalition,” Marchand said. “He understands better than anyone else the problems we face in our economy and he’s offering a solution that is a big as moment we’re in."Marchand also cited Yang’s success in the business and nonprofit sectors and noted that Yang is “a person of color.” He called Yang “highly intelligent and personable, optimist, a problem-solver, a parent, an outsider with youthful energy, unafraid to speak plainly -- and he can win.”Marchand called Yang’s universal basic income/Freedom Dividend plan “an idea whose time has come.”“It doesn’t just deal with economic inequality. It actually deals with poverty more directly than any other policy I’ve seen on the trail this year,” Marchand said. “For younger voters, the freedom dividend connects with the fact that they are leaving their education in debt, with high household costs, high transportation costs and are having difficulty entering the workforce at the place they had thought they would enter it.“This gives them a chance to get ahead in a way that no other candidates’ policies do,” Marchand said. “When Andrew talks about the industrial jobs lost in the Midwest, he is connecting directly with the very voters who handed Donald Trump the election in 2016. It’s also an issue in places like Claremont, Somersworth and Berlin.”Snell said, “Andrew's policy of a universal basic income will empower Granite Staters and Americans to live more creative, healthy, and prosperous lives. I look forward to organizing the Yang Gang here in New Hampshire and to winning the first in the nation primary."Marchand added, “If we’re going to beat Donald Trump in 2020, the best way to do it is with a nominee who has a profile that grabs you by the lapels and makes you pay attention."He’s the kind of outsider that the more people heaer about him, the more people that are going to support Andrew Yang. If people learn a fraction of what I’ve learned about Andrew Yang, they're going to become supporters and there’s a lot of runway until decision day in 2020."