After crisscrossing the state for months, criticizing Gov. Chris Sununu everywhere he goes, gubernatorial candidate Steve Marchand held a campaign kickoff rally this week and once again zeroed in on his favorite target.
Criticizing the Republican incumbent over his support for a school choice bill, Marchand said on Thursday at his Manchester event that “delivering the best public schools in America will not come from persuading Chris Sununu. It will only come from replacing Chris Sununu.”
Marchand is making his second straight bid for the Corner Office. He jumped in late in the 2016 race for the Democratic nomination, but ended up finishing a surprise – yet distant – second to nominee Colin Van Ostern. This time around, he announced extremely early, launching his candidacy in early April of last year.
Since then, Marchand’s been working the long hours a reaching out to voters at county and local party meetings and house parties.
And while the November election is less than eight months away, most people in New Hampshire have yet to pay attention to the gubernatorial race.
A UNH survey indicated that only 1 in 10 had made up their minds when it comes to November’s gubernatorial election. And the poll also indicated that Marchand – even with his constant campaigning since last spring – remains virtually unknown to most Granite Staters.
Marchand admitted it’s going to take a lot of hard work and long hours on the campaign trail to beat a popular incumbent governor who has a famous last name. He told the Monitor that “you’re going to have to be the hardest-working candidate in recent history.”
Overall, Marchand said that Sununu’s not a bad guy but “he’s a bad governor.”
And pointing to Sununu’s support of President Donald Trump, he said “Chris is actually New Hampshire’s Donald Trump.”
“You can’t embrace somebody like he did in 2016 like he did with Donald Trump and then act like you don’t know the guy in 2018,” Marchand said.
The former Portsmouth mayor has had the race for the Democratic nomination to himself, but that will likely soon change.
Former state Sen. Molly Kelly launched an exploratory committee late last month. The move by the Harrisville Democrat was a clear signal she’s moving closer to launching a gubernatorial campaign.
But Marchand doesn’t seem fazed. He recently argued that “nobody’s talking to more voters, more donors, attending more events in more towns than I am. And nobody else is showing up at those towns. They’ve not been calling those donors. They’ve not been doing the work.”
Whomever wins the Democratic nomination will have a tough task in trying to defeat Sununu.
The state’s first GOP governor in a dozen years has history on his side. Only one incumbent has failed to win re-election to a second two-year term in the past nine decades. The governor who was defeated was Republican Craig Benson, who lost his 2004 re-election bid to Democratic challenger John Lynch.
Sununu, who has a likeable demeanor, enjoyed a successful legislative session last year, seeing most of his agenda passed by the GOP controlled Statehouse.
His latest poll numbers would make any incumbent running for re-election happy. A University of New Hampshire Survey Center Granite State Poll conducted early last month indicated that 61 percent of Granite Staters approved of the job the governor was doing, with only 17 percent giving him a thumbs down.
And Sununu had a 57 percent to 31 percent approval/disapproval rating in Saint Anselm College Survey Center poll conducted late last month.
Sununu topped Marchand by 14 points in a hypothetical general election matchup in the UNH survey.
Working against Sununu is tradition and the national climate. The party in power – which is the Republicans both in Concord and in Washington D.C. – often fairs poorly in midterm elections.
And Democrats in the Granite State are energized. They’ve won nine out of 11 State House special elections over the past year and scored big victories in November’s municipal contests.
And the Democrats razor thin victory this week in a special congressional election in Pennsylvania in a district that Trump won by 20 points in the 2016 presidential election fuels the belief that there will be a blue wave come November.
While he has disagreed with Trump at times, Sununu is an ally of the President and his administration. The New Hampshire Democratic Party doesn’t waste an opportunity to link Sununu to Trump, who’s approval ratings in the Granite State are hovering around 35 percent.
Trump returns to New Hampshire on Monday for the first time since the eve of the 2016 presidential election.
“All of the evidence we can glean from the various elections that have taken place since President Trump’s inauguration suggest that Democrats are in a very strong position,” New England College political science professor Wayne Lesperance said.
“I would argue that Governor Sununu has some insulation against those concerns because of his current poll numbers. What remains to be seen is how strong the democratic wave will be next November and whether or not it proves too great for any Republican, however popular, to overcome,” Lesperance added.
Saint Anselm College political science professor Chris Galdieri believed that “the national climate will definitely affect the race. Recent elections suggest that Democrats are highly motivated to turn out and are much more enthusiastic about voting than Republicans are.”
“I don’t think anyone beats Sununu simply by going all Trump, all the time, but Trump’s persistent unpopularity is going to be a drag on Republicans this fall,” Galdieri added.