When you’re running a grassroots campaign, the organization starts at home.

Jeanne Dietsch of Peterborough has local political experience, but this year she decided to make a try for a higher office – running a primary campaign against Democratic candidate Lee Nyquist for the opportunity to vie against incumbent state Senator Andy Sanborn in November.

Ultimately, Dietsch fell short of winning the primary, by a very narrow margin – only 96 votes behind her opponent.

“We thought we were going to win,” said Dietsch. “We did win in nine out of 14 towns. I think if we had done a few things a little differently, we could have flipped those 40 votes we would have needed to win.”

It was not, however, a lack of effort, or of passion.

Dietsch and her family and a team of several volunteers were busy in the weeks leading up to the campaign.

Dietsch and her campaign manager, Sam Blair, had their feet on the ground knocking on doors across the Senatorial district – 3,600 of them.

Among those assisting Dietsch were her grown children, including her daughter and son-in-law Eva and Justin Vining, who traveled up to New Hampshire from Georgia, not for a vacation, but to help Dietsch on the campaign trail.

Her son, Ethan Kennedy of Peterborough, also put in his time, spending a day holding a campaign sign for his mother at the Recycling Center in Peterborough, posting about her campaign on Facebook – and generally suffering through late dinner times as his mother was out on the campaign trail.

But after the primary dust settled, with Nyquist the narrow winner, Dietsch said she’ll be relaxing from politics and working on her core platform from the civilian side of things.

Training an economically viable workforce for good paying jobs that will incentivize young workers to stay in-state, increasing wages to reduce class disparity, and lobbying for care for children born with drug addiction through age 4 were the main points of her campaign, said Dietsch, and she intends to still fight for those ideals.

“I’m basically a business person,” said Dietsch. I’m nore invested in accomplishing goals than gaining office. I don’t necessarily have to be in office to accomplish those goals.”

Dietsch said she may consider running for Senate again in two years, depending on the outcome of the upcoming election in November.

Disagreement with Sanborn over key issues, particularly business policy and minimum wages, was the main reason she ran for office in the first place, said Dietsch. so if the seat stays red, she’ll consider another campaign in 2018.

Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.