If Not Sununu, Then Who?

The GOP has an opportunity to pick up a Senate seat in New Hampshire—if it can find someone to run.

By
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CONCORD, New Hampshire—The national labor shortage just added another unfilled job: Republican U.S. Senate candidate from New Hampshire.

On Tuesday, Gov. Chris Sununu shocked many political observers—and broke even more D.C. GOP hearts—by announcing he will not be challenging Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan next year. And while there are no guarantees in politics, the popular, three-term incumbent was as close to a lock as a GOP candidate in New England can get. Last year Sununu got more votes in New Hampshire than either Donald Trump or Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

During the peak of the COVID-19 crisis, Sununu’s approval rose so high that, despite dropping 21 percent since his June 2020 high, he’s still at 56 percent approve/42 percent disapprove in the latest New Hampshire Institute of Politics poll.

By comparison, President Joe Biden—who beat Trump by 8 points here a year ago—is underwater by -12 points (44 approve/56 disapprove). And more significantly, Hassan is at 44 approve/50 disapprove. The bad (or rather, worse) news? That’s actually an improvement from two months ago.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    I wish Kelly Ayotte had decided to run. We could use her back in the Senate.

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  2. Keeper of the Peregrinus

    Y'all should have heard how the fellows at the Ruthless Podcast handled hearing Sununu not running: basically calling him a spineless coward POS.

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    Sad Trombone

    Maybe the Republicans could recruit Tom Brady to run.

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    Anthony Ryba

    Can anyone already smell the stink of a Trumpkin candidate losing what is a winnable race?

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    David Hendrickson

    "And while many in New Hampshires* political circles were surprised..."

    *Friendly note on the typo

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    1. Avatar photo
      David Hendrickson

      Otherwise, excellent article. I'm bummed that Sununu announced he wouldn't run. I thought he would've been a great Senator, but I totally understand why he wouldn't. I think it's more a condemnation on the Senate or Congress more broadly than it is on the state of New Hampshirite politics.

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    Frank Lee

    The source of this problem is first our corrupted education system having indoctrinated millions of students who now roam our virtual social media roads as a mob of destruction, and our disgusting American corporate media businesses, also filled with those same campus clones, that milk a narrative of conflict to carve out a tribal viewership alliance. Our national political system is just a reflection of this broken media situation.

    The irony here is that Substack.com launched as a tonic for the media malady. However, I don't hold out much hope that the Substack owners aren't also planning an exit strategy selling off to the big corporate media owners. Which is sad... because other than eradicating the CRT indoctrination fake scholarship junk from the education system, a remade American media is the only hope to get our national politicians back to working together to get things done.

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    1. DJ

      To celebrate Veteran's Day, today Ted Cruz released a podcast episode titled "Give the Bird to Big Bird."

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  7. Avatar photo
    Kurt N

    Is Bolduc a retired major general? His Wikipedia page says brigadier gen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_C._Bolduc

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    Pat Riot

    Has anybody asked Trump who should fill this role? His is the only opinion that matters for that question...

    "Why Mitch McConnell caved to Donald Trump on Herschel Walker"

    https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/pennsylvania/articles/2021-10-15/cash-flows-to-us-senate-rivals-of-trumps-endorsed-candidate

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  9. Avatar photo
    Probably Wrong

    When the Senate is so dysfunctional that only a lunatic would want to be a Senator, all the candidates will be lunatics.

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      J. Eric

      You’re probably right

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    Charlie Hall

    If Hassan is so weak, how did she defeat a strong politically astute Senator like Kelly Ayotte? Did the nutty far right (which has been a major player in New Hampshire since about the time Trump was born) abandon Ayotte in favor of a Dem?

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    1. David R

      The article explicitly mentions a nutty "far right" (aka a leftists who makes conservative-sounding culture-war noises) candidate who got more votes than the difference between the major party candidates. Also, in New England Trump likely dragged down the GOP.

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