New Hampshire GOP Gov. Sununu the anti-DeSantis when it comes to redistricting

Both are governors in their 40s and have elite higher education credentials (Sununu is an MIT-trained engineer, while DeSantis is an alum of Yale College and Harvard Law School). Each won their first gubernatorial race by relatively slim margins.

But Sununu and DeSantis in recent months took drastically different paths when it comes to redistricting, the once-in-a-decade process of reconfiguring House and state legislative district lines that’s usually a highly partisan endeavor.

That’s certainly the way DeSantis approached redistricting in Florida, which, due to heavy population growth in the decade before the 2020 census, earned an extra House seat. The Sunshine State will have 28 House districts when the new lines take effect in January 2023, putting it behind only California and Texas for congressional representation.

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DeSantis successfully pushed to redraw the state’s congressional map and give a substantial advantage to Republicans. The map, which the Florida Supreme Court has left in place for at least the 2022 cycle, gives Republicans a chance for a 20-8 advantage over Democrats in a state where the GOP has only a slight voter registration edge. The partisan breakdown under current House lines is 16 Republicans and 11 Democrats.

The Florida map is another blow to House Democrats’ efforts to hold on to the majority the party first won in 2018. House Republicans need to net five seats in the 435-member chamber, while Democrats are on the defensive over spiking inflation, high gas prices, and a range of other national concerns.

Far up the Atlantic coast, Sununu took a different tack when it came to redistricting. The Granite State only has two House districts, but like DeSantis in Florida, Sununu could have tried to maximize Republican gains. Both chambers of the legislature are GOP-controlled, giving the party free reign if desired to reconfigure the districts in a way that minimizes the reelection chances of a Democrat holding the coastal 1st Congressional District seat, Rep. Chris Pappas.

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But New Hampshire redistricting also had history to contend with. The state’s two House districts have remained roughly the same since the 1880s, divided by the Merrimack River. The 2nd Congressional District, along the Vermont state line, is also held by a Democrat, Rep. Annie Kuster.

Sununu sought to make both districts more politically competitive, an approach at odds with Republican state lawmakers. He vetoed several versions of their maps, and on May 31, the New Hampshire Supreme Court adopted a House plan released by a court-appointed special master the prior week. The new map largely keeps the House district status quo, making both seats competitive, per Sununu’s wishes — particularly when a red wave appears to be building in November as President Joe Biden’s approval rating spirals downward.

The Sununu-DeSantis dichotomy over redistricting reflects broader stylistic differences.

“Sununu has been far less partisan as a governor than most people have. He’s governed more as a manager, as an executive rather than as a partisan,” Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, told the Washington Examiner.

While DeSantis has embraced the culture war mantle as governor, constantly tossing red meat at his base on issues such as critical race theory and wokeness, Sununu has been reticent about diving headfirst into some of the thorniest hot-button issues of the day. Instead, he has focused on traditional conservative goals such as lowering taxes and cutting regulations while attempting to foster bipartisan cooperation in the state legislature.

This strategy has propelled Sununu to be one of the top six most popular governors in the country, according to a recent Morning Consult poll, but has cost him points with his base. DeSantis ranked 22 on that list, but his partisan-laced scrappiness has catapulted him to star power status within Trumpworld, with legions of zealous MAGA followers even considering him as an alternative to former President Donald Trump — a feat seemingly no other Republican has achieved.

Sununu “seems to be trying to thread the needle. He doesn’t want to become a Never Trumper, and yet, he seems to go out of his way sometimes to be somewhat Mavericky,” Dante Scala, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, told the Washington Examiner.

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An environmental engineer by trade, Sununu had ended a 12-year Republican drought in the governor’s mansion with his 2016 win over his Democratic opponent by a 48.8% to 46.6% margin. Sununu’s triumph was a breakthrough for Republicans in a state that has increasingly trended blue. The Granite State has favored a Democrat for president in every election after 2000 and is one of the least religious states in the country.

Sununu also brought a measure of name recognition to his winning gubernatorial campaign. His father, John H. Sununu, was New Hampshire’s governor from 1983 to 1989 and then was White House chief of staff to President George H.W. Bush for nearly three years. The governor’s brother, John E. Sununu, was a Republican senator from New Hampshire from 2003 to 2009 following six years in the House.

DeSantis had an even closer win in 2018, beating his Democratic opponent 49.6% to 49.2%, a difference of about 34,000 votes out of more than 8.2 million cast in an otherwise Democratic wave year. DeSantis follows a string of Republican governors going back to January 1999.