Sununu Passes on Senate Race, Giving Democrats a Break
The recent chain of events thought by the Beltway cognoscenti to spell doom and disaster for the Democratic Party was broken today when the prize Republican Senate prospect for the 2022 midterms said “no, thanks” to the offer of massive national-party financial support and celebrity. New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu shocked the GOP by announcing he would not, after all, challenge freshman Democratic senator Maggie Hassan and would instead run for a fourth two-year term as the Granite State’s chief executive.
Sununu’s statement of noncandidacy added insult to injury for Republicans who see reconquering the Senate in 2022 as a holy cause. “My responsibility is not to the gridlock and politics of Washington; it is to the citizens of New Hampshire,” Sununu said. “I’d rather push myself 120 miles an hour delivering wins for New Hampshire than just slow down and end up on Capitol Hill debating partisan politics without results.”
Gone unsaid is a fact little known to those who assume every governor wants a “promotion” to the Senate: Being governor is a hoot. You have an entire state government reporting to you; there is, in most states, some very nice public housing in the form of a fully staffed “governor’s mansion”; and you can make news whenever you want. In most respects, it’s a lot more attractive than being one of 100 senators struggling for attention and some sort of meaningful accomplishments while living in two places. Sununu likely knows a lot about the dubious pleasures of Washington, since his father was White House chief of staff under George H.W. Bush and his older brother was a one-term U.S. senator from 2003 to 2009.
Whatever its genesis, Sununu’s decision is a blow to Republicans who viewed Hassan as vulnerable and New Hampshire as the key to flipping the Senate. Sununu has led Hassan (his predecessor as governor) in every public poll taken this year. He won reelection to a third term in 2020 by nearly a two-to-one margin. There is no obvious star waiting in the wings to replace him in the Senate race. Former senator Kelly Ayotte (who lost her seat to Hassan in 2016) had been reportedly planning a gubernatorial bid assuming Sununu would run for the Senate. But now sources close to her say she won’t run for anything in 2022. There is already one announced Republican candidate, former general Don Bolduc, who has a notable fan in Donald J. Trump. Bolduc, who buys into the Big Lie, may be too Trumpy for New Hampshire, a state Joe Biden won by seven points last year (even as Sununu romped and Republicans won control of the state legislature).
Read more: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/11/sununu-passes-on-senate-race-giving-democrats-a-break.html
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