By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New Hampshire's Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Don Bolduc, said on Thursday that he believed the 2020 presidential election was legitimate, a reversal of his previously false claims that Democrat Joe Biden had won unfairly.
Bolduc, a retired U.S. Army brigadier general, said during a hard-fought Republican primary that he believed Republican Donald Trump's false claims that he had won the election, despite no credible evidence of widespread fraud.
But one day after narrowly winning the primary, Bolduc said he had revised his opinion.
"I have come to the conclusion, and I want to be definitive on this, the election was not stolen," Bolduc said in an interview on Fox News.
"Elections have consequences. And unfortunately, President Biden is the legitimate president of this country," he added.
Bolduc is vying to unseat incumbent Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan in the Nov. 8 midterm election, in which control of Congress is at stake.
Independent analysts say his hard-right views could make it difficult to win over independent-minded voters in the politically competitive state of New Hampshire.
Aside from his false claims about the 2020 election, Bolduc has questioned whether the FBI should be abolished following its August search of Trump's Florida estate, where agents seized a cache of classified documents.
New Hampshire is one of seven key battlegrounds along with Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada that analysts believe will determine control of the 100-seat Senate. The Senate is currently divided 50-50, with Democrats holding a majority thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris' tie-breaking vote.