As he runs for the Republican nomination in New Hampshire’s Second Congressional District, former Hillsborough County treasurer Bob Burns often showcases his “pro-Trump” credentials.
And in the state’s First Congressional District nomination contest, GOP candidate Karoline Leavitt repeatedly emphasizes that “I’m proud to be the home-grown America First candidate in this race.”
Nearly 20 months removed from the White House, former President Donald Trump remains the most popular and influential politician in the GOP, both in New Hampshire and across the country. This, while he repeatedly teases and moves towards making another presidential run, and as he continues to play a kingmaker’s role in Republican primaries. While a handful of candidates he’s backed this cycle suffered some attention-grabbing defeats, the solid majority of his endorsed contenders in competitive primaries have won their nomination battles.
While Trump has remained neutral to date in the competitive and combustible Republican primaries in New Hampshire for U.S. Senate and both congressional districts, three-term GOP Gov. Chris Sununu has weighed in on two of the races.
Sununu, who remains very popular among Granite State Republicans, endorsed Keene Mayor George Hansel as he declared his candidacy in the Second District, in the race to face off in November’s general election against five-term Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster.
And on Thursday, Sununu gave his support to state Senate President Chuck Morse, who’s one of the front-runners in the race for the Republican U.S. Senate primary in the fight to challenge former governor and first-term Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan in the midterms.
The polling front-runner in the Senate primary, retired Army Gen. Don Bolduc has showcased his support for Trump and for the president’s repeatedly re-litigating his 2020 election loss to now-President Joe Biden.
At first glance, the candidates running in the Senate and two congressional races appear to fit in lanes – a Trump lane, a more establishment Sununu lane, and a Libertarian minded and Free State Project lane. But politics is rarely that simple and defined.
Take state Rep. Fred Doucette, who served as co-chair of Trump’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns in New Hampshire. He’s also a strong Sununu supporter.
“Nobody’s supported President Trump longer than I have and nobody agrees with his positions and policies more than I do,” Doucette told the Monitor. “But you’ve also got to give the nod to the successes we’ve had with Sununu.”
While he acknowledged that “there are factions that say ‘I can’t stand Sununu’ or ‘I can’t stand Trump,’” the longtime Republican from Salem stressed that “I don’t know if there’s a clear divide between one camp and the other.”
Neil Levesque, the executive director of Saint Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics, argued that “the battle for the future of the party’s already happened, and I think it doesn’t take long when you listen to these candidates in a forum or a debate, to hear former President Trump and his themes come out in these candidates.”
“This is a different Republican Party than it was 10 years ago,” Levesque, who began his political career working for former GOP Rep. Charlie Bass, emphasized. “The question is going to be whether or not those candidates can win a general election.”
And he said that “going towards the November election, it’s a real test here to see whether this new, Republican Party, and Republican Party voter, can send candidates that are competitive in the general election.”
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas parachuted into New Hampshire on Thursday, to support the candidate he’s backing in the First Congressional District race.
“The reason I’m supporting Karoline Leavitt for Congress is she is the strongest conservative in this race who will stand and fight,” Cruz told a healthy crowd of supporters of the 25-year-old Leavitt, who served in Trump’s White House press shop.
The trip by Cruz to New Hampshire — which for a century has held the first presidential primary in the race for the White House — will further fuel speculation that Cruz is moving towards launching a second national campaign. The conservative firebrand was runner-up to Trump in the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
Last month, Cruz visited Iowa, the state that for a half century has kicked off the presidential nominating calendar through its caucuses. Cruz headlined a fundraiser for longtime GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, who is running for re-election this year. That trip followed an earlier August visit to Nevada, which votes fourth in the GOP primary and caucus schedule, where Cruz spoke in support of former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt, the 2022 Senate nominee in the key battleground state.
At Thursday’s event in Londonderry, Cruz told the crowd that “I love the fierce, freedom-loving independence, the flinty New England strength…New Hampshire, you are warriors. And you understand the value of standing and fighting.”
Cruz stuck around for roughly an hour after the event ended, shaking hands and posing for pictures with conservative activists and voters, and even joined some in the crowd for a beer at the bar at the American Legion post where the campaign event was held.
When asked about the next White House race, Cruz told reporters that “there’ll be plenty of time for speculation about future elections. I understand how this process works.”
“My focus is on November of 2022,” the senator, who’s been crisscrossing the national campaign trail this year on behalf of fellow Republicans, reiterated. “2022 is a pivotal fork in the road.”