After nearly a year of anticipation, one sentence from Gov. Chris Sununu instantly made headlines not only in New Hampshire but across the country.
“I’m going to run for a fourth term,” Sununu announced at a November news conference at Concord’s Bridges House, which has long been known as the New Hampshire governors’ mansion.
The decision by the Republican governor to seek another two-year term steering New Hampshire rather than challenge U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan – Sununu’s Democratic predecessor in the corner office – in the 2022 elections had an instant impact on next year’s political landscape and was the obvious choice as the most consequential campaign moment this year in the Granite State.
“The New Hampshire political story of the year is hands down the decision by Governor Sununu to forego a U.S. Senate run and instead seek re-election to the corner office in the Granite State,” veteran New Hampshire based political scientist Wayne Lesperance told the Monitor.
The news took on added significance because it upended expectations.
“I am not aware of a single pundit in the state, myself included, who could credibly say they saw this coming,” Lesperance emphasized. “We all believed the pressure and the opportunity were too great for the governor to not run.”
The governor’s decision immediately took what would have been one of the most expensive, competitive, and consequential Senate races in the 2022 midterm elections and moved it, at least temporarily, from the A-list to the B-list.
Sununu’s announcement also turned a potentially wide-open gubernatorial showdown into a contest, that for now, is far from the national political radar.
The stage was set at the beginning of the year for a showdown, as the Democrats swept the twin Jan. 5 Senate runoffs in Georgia, which resulted in a Senate chamber split 50/50 between the two major political parties. But the Republicans lost their majority two weeks later when then-Sen. Kamala Harris of California was sworn in as vice president, giving the Democrats control of the chamber thanks to her Constitutional role as president of the Senate.
While Republicans are defending 20 of the 34 seats up for grabs in the 2022 midterms, including five open seats, they only need a net gain of one seat to regain the majority. And the GOP quickly concentrated on flipping from blue to red four seats in extremely competitive general election battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire.
Hassan had flagging approval numbers and her seat was viewed as vulnerable.
Meanwhile, Sununu had just come off a landslide 2020 reelection victory which helped sweep into power a Republican majority in the state House of Representatives, Senate, and Executive Council. Republicans in Washington saw the popular New Hampshire governor as their top recruit in 2022. A full-court press by national Republicans – all the way up to longtime GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky – to lobby Sununu to take on Hassan in 2022 quickly got underway and lasted straight up until the governor’s early November announcement.
Sununu for years had vehemently said that he had “no interest” in running for the Senate, as he regularly lambasted both Democrats and Republicans in Congress for doing little to nothing.
But starting at the end of last year, Sununu’s rhetoric downplaying a potential 2022 Senate run began to soften.
“I’m not ruling anything out,” the governor told the Monitor last December. Such comments were repeated in numerous media interviews.
Fast forward to early last month, and Sununu continued to toy with his political future.
“I might run for governor. I might run for Senate. I don’t know,” Sununu said at a speech in Las Vegas, at the Republican Jewish Coalition confab just days before his announcement.
The governor then boasted “trust me, I’m going to win either way,” before adding “sorry, Maggie.”
A few days later, in explaining his decision, Sununu told reporters he could best serve the Granite State by remaining here.
“My responsibility is not to the gridlock and politics of Washington, it’s to the citizens of New Hampshire,” he said. “And I’d rather push myself 120 miles per hour delivering wins for New Hampshire than to slow down and end up on Capitol Hill debating partisan politics without results.”
He said as governor, he sometimes makes “20 tough decisions a day.”
“You don’t get to do any of that in the Senate,” he said. “You debate and talk; nothing gets done. And as I said, sometimes that’s considered a win, doing nothing. I can’t.”
He said the job of a governor doesn’t compare to that of a U.S. senator.
“I can’t tell you how many senators told me ‘you’re just going to have to wait around a couple of years to get anything done.’ Can you imagine me sitting around a couple of years,” Sununu said. “They debate and talk and nothing gets done. … That’s not the world I live in.”
Sununu’s announcement was quickly followed by word that former GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who was defeated by Hassan by a razor-thin margin of just over 1,000 votes in 2016, wouldn’t seek the Senate seat.
Former GOP Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who moved to New Hampshire and came close to defeating Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in 2014, said that a 2022 Senate run wasn’t on his radar, either. Brown, who served as ambassador to New Zealand during then President Donald Trump’s administration, noted that he’s supporting his wife Gail Huff Brown’s GOP run for Congress in New Hampshire’s First District.
The impact of Sununu’s decision was quickly felt a few days later when the Cook Political Report, a leading nonpartisan political handicapper, shifted the Senate races in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada from lean Democrat to toss-up, but didn’t touch the New Hampshire race.
While some top Republican strategists in Washington called Sununu’s decision “a huge disappointment,” the National Republican Senatorial Committee still sees Hassan as vulnerable next year against the right candidate.
There’s only one Republican who’s a declared candidate in the Senate race. Retired Gen. Don Bolduc, who unsuccessfully ran for the 2020 GOP Senate nomination, launched his campaign over a year ago.
Speculation continues to swirl over which other Republicans would launch bids against Hassan. New Hampshire Senate President Chuck Morse, Londonderry town manager Kevin Smith, and investment and media executive and 2010 Senate candidate Bill Binnie have all confirmed they’re seriously considering runs. State education commission and former gubernatorial candidate Frank Edelblut is also mulling a Senate campaign.
Meanwhile, what would have been a wide-open race for governor in 2022, with multiple candidates from both parties, witnessed a sudden drop in potential contenders.
A handful of Granite State-based Democratic strategists pointed to state Sen. Tom Sherman as their party’s most likely gubernatorial nominee next year.
“The sooner the better but I can’t rush the process,” Sherman told the Monitor earlier this month when asked about his timetable for deciding on a run for governor.
“I’m going to keep doing all my hard work in the meantime, both legislating and fundraising, and continue to have discussions that I need to have before I make a final decision,” the gastroenterologist from Rye and ranking member and former chair of the state Senate Health and Human Services Committee added.