He’s hands down the most popular New Hampshire politician among GOP voters in the Granite State.
But it looks like Gov. Chris Sununu has incurred the rath of the most powerful and influential Republican leader in the entire country.
A longtime adviser to Donald Trump says the former president asked him to potentially find someone to launch a credible primary challenge against Sununu, who’s running for reelection this year for a fourth two-year term.
Windham’s Corey Lewandowski, who served as campaign manager during Trump’s stunning 2016 GOP presidential nomination run, made plenty of headlines on Wednesday during an interview on “The Howie Carr Show,” a conservative talk radio show popular with Trump loyalists.
Lewandowski told Carr, who’s a major Trump supporter, that the former president tasked him with “potentially finding someone to run against Chris Sununu.”
Sununu supported Trump during the 2016 general election and again as the then-president unsuccessfully ran for reelection in 2020. The governor had a strong working relationship with the Trump White House, including close ties with former Vice President Mike Pence.
But over the past 15 months, Sununu’s pushed back against Trump’s unproven claims that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” and “stolen.” He’s also stated more than once that the GOP is larger than any one person, which was perceived as a swipe at the former president, who remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party.
Sununu was asked Sunday in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” whether he’d like to have Trump campaign with him as he runs for reelection.
“I don’t need anyone to campaign with me,” Sununu answered. “Look, I’m a big believer that, as a candidate, you’ve got to stand on your own two feet.”
Sununu also criticized Trump’s controversial comments from hours earlier, when the former president at a rally in Texas controversially suggested that if he runs for the White House in 2024 and wins, he might pardon supporters who were convicted for taking part in the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in an attempt to disrupt congressional certification of now President Joe Biden’s 2020 Electoral College victory.
“Folks that were part of the riots and, frankly, the assault on the U.S. Capitol, have to be held accountable,” Sununu said. “There’s a rule of law.”
While his approval ratings soared during the first year and a half of the coronavirus pandemic due to his strong response to the worst pandemic to strike the globe in a century, restrictions implemented by the governor have not played well with many on the far right.
Lewandowski, in an ensuing interview with Fox News, argued that “if someone were to run against [Sununu], they could be successful. I think what you’ve seen is that Chris Sununu does not have a lot of money in his campaign account and there are a lot of families who are inversely impacted by his decisions in the world of COVID, about the ways our schools were closed, that our kids continue to be masked…. I think there are a lot of people over the last two years who have raised issues and concerns.”
Lewandowski didn’t say if Trump would back a candidate to challenge Sununu, but left the door open.
“What we do know is that the president has never shied away from getting engaged in races where he thinks an America First candidate is there and someone who he believes is best able to serve,” Lewandowski said. “He has a history and pattern of engaging in races, particularly in primaries.”
Lewandowski, who flirted with a GOP run for the Senate in the 2020 cycle, said he wasn’t interested in launching a gubernatorial bid of his own.
The former president’s political team said they had nothing to add when asked about Lewandowski’s comments. The Monitor reached out to Sununu’s political advisers for comment, but they didn’t respond. The governor was on the Atlantic Ocean island nation of Cabo Verde this week with the New Hampshire National Guard – to officially establish a state partnership – while the story was making national headlines back home.
In interviews earlier in the week with the morning news-talk radio program “New Hampshire Today” and with the “NH Journal,” Sununu pushed back against the suggestion that he was anti-Republican.
But two Trump loyalist in New Hampshire emphasized there’s a hunger to find a primary challenger to take on Sununu. They both noted that the governor’s CNN interview was likely the last straw.
The New Hampshire GOP declined to weigh in, noting that, according to its bylaws, it must remain neutral in Republican primaries.
Sununu won reelection in Nov. 2020 to a third, two-year term in a landslide, which fueled the GOP takeover of both chambers of the state legislature as well as the Executive Council. While Sununu won reelection by a massive 32 points, Trump lost New Hampshire by seven points to Biden.
Sununu’s poll numbers have declined from the stratosphere over the past six months, yet they are still in positive territory. Among Republicans they remain sky-high with 86% of GOP voters saying they approve of how the governor was handling his duties in a University of New Hampsh ire poll conducted in December. Sununu’s favorable rating in a St. Anselm College poll among Republicans stood at 79%, six points lower than Trump’s 85% favorable rating.
While it was overshadowed by the Trump/Sununu aspect of the story, Lewandowski touted that he speaks regularly with the former president.
Last September, Lewandowski lost his position steering Trump’s super PAC following serious sexual misconduct allegations that grabbed national headlines. A Trump spokesperson at the time said, “Corey Lewandowski will be going on to other endeavors and we very much want to thank him for his service. He will no longer be associated with Trump World.”
But Lewandowski told Fox News “I haven’t spoken to the president in the last 45 minutes, but other than that I speak to him on a regular basis.”