SANBORNTON, New Hampshire — “What’s the case for her?” Gov. Chris Sununu responded dismissively when the Republican was asked to lay out his case against Sen. Maggie Hassan, the incumbent Democrat he may challenge in midterm elections next year.
Sununu, the GOP’s coveted 46-year-old recruit, is undecided about mounting a 2022 bid after three successful gubernatorial campaigns in just four years (New Hampshire still limits its chief executive to two-year terms.) But gradually, Sununu is dipping his toes into the national political waters and feeling out a race against Hassan, suggesting however much the governor might legitimately “hate” Washington, waging the potentially decisive battle for control of an evenly divided Senate intrigues him.
On Thursday, over scrambled eggs, crisp bacon, and fluffy pancakes as big as Frisbees at a family-run breakfast spot in tiny Sanbornton, in rural central New Hampshire, after an early morning hike to the summit of Mount Major along Lake Winnipesaukee, Sununu answered the question about Hassan with a broader indictment of both parties in Congress. The governor sounded like the Senate candidate Republican leaders in Washington desperately want him to be.
“I will talk in generalities because I think it does apply to a lot of folks in Washington, Republican and Democrat alike. A lot of folks get elected, and they disappear. They just don’t show up. They’re not back in the district. They’re not back connecting with people. They’re not visiting businesses,” Sununu said in an interview with a couple of national reporters who parachuted into New Hampshire to pin him down on his 2022 plans.
“A lot of folks go to Washington and they get — for whatever reason, they get sucked in by this bubble,” the governor continued as if giving his possible Senate campaign message a test-run. “If you’re going to do something like public service with leadership that can really impact people’s lives, you’ve got to give 110%, 110% of the time, or don’t do it at all.”
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Speaking of which, New Hampshire Democrats have some thoughts about that. “The worst-kept secret in Washington is that Mitch McConnell wants Chris Sununu to run for Senate,” Ray Buckley, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner. “If Sununu runs, it will be for Mitch McConnell, not the people of New Hampshire.” McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, is the Senate minority leader.
The New Hampshire Democratic Party launched “McConnell-Sununu Exposed,” an initiative to brand the governor as a stooge of the national Republican Party and undermine the image of a pragmatic conservative he has cultivated since winning the governor’s mansion in 2016. Sununu supports abortion rights. But Democrats believe Sununu’s decision to sign a state budget that included provisions outlawing late-term abortions and requiring mandatory ultrasounds, among other possible political vulnerabilities, could be his undoing against Hassan.
“The Sununu family’s investments, Sununu’s opposition to the American Rescue Plan, his support for an extreme abortion ban, and his close ties with McConnell will all come back to bite him in a U.S. Senate race,” Buckley said.
Sununu spent Thursday on a campaign-style swing across the state, a regular part of the schedule for a governor who appears genuinely interested in people and energized by the retail politicking New Hampshire is known for.
Thursday started with the hike, joined by Belknap County sheriff’s deputies, to promote New Hampshire tourism. Next up: Heritage Farms Pancake House, where the owners showed Sununu around and he chatted with voters as they munched on breakfast. There would be seven more stops, including tours of local small businesses and manufacturers, plus a boat ride with the New Hampshire Marine Patrol in Lake Winnipesaukee. At the pancake house, at least, the governor found some admirers.
“I’d like to see him run for president,” said Ginny Sanborn, a middle-age Republican woman from Laconia who runs a family-owned three-bay auto repair shop.
When Sanborn saw Sununu, she flagged him and told him she wanted to put him on the phone with her elderly father. The governor obliged and spent the next few minutes talking to him via Sanborn’s cellphone about the hiring challenges he faces in a state that has seen its unemployment rate plummet to 2.9% as the coronavirus recedes. “Hang in there,” Sununu told Sanborn’s father.
“I’m very pleased with what he’s done,” added Jay Kaplan, a 65-year-old retiree and registered independent who has supported Sununu for governor and said he would “absolutely” pull the lever for him over Hassan if he runs for Senate. “I mean, I have issues about some things, but, hey, no one’s perfect.”
Sununu is the scion of New Hampshire political royalty. His father, John Sununu, is a former governor and was White House chief of staff to President George H.W. Bush. His older brother, John E. Sununu, was a senator from 2003–2009 and a House member for six years before that. But that is not why McConnell and Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, are putting the hard sell on the governor to become the third Sununu to take on Washington.
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Sununu is popular.
In public opinion polls and hypothetical matchups against Hassan, he looks like a sure thing, especially with President Joe Biden in the White House. Of course, this is before the Democratic Party has invested resources tearing him down, also a sure thing if Sununu runs for Senate. In an interview with the Washington Examiner on Wednesday in the statehouse in Concord, Sununu played coy when asked if he has made any decisions about his future.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know,” he said. “I’ve got the luxury of waiting, and I have a responsibility of waiting. We’re just coming out of COVID, and there’s still a lot more to do.”
