Sununu passes on presidential campaign

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu will not run for president in 2024, the Republican said Monday, after months of sending mixed signals about a White House bid.

Sununu’s decision to forgo a 2024 presidential campaign is consistent with his recent comments that candidates without a clear path should clear out of the primary quickly — or skip it entirely — to avoid re-nominating Donald Trump, who the New Hampshire governor doesn’t believe can win another general election.

"We've taken the last six months to really kind of look at things where everything is and I've made the decision not to run for president," Sununu told CNN's Dana Bash, adding that by not getting into the race he can have "a little more of an unleashed voice" in telling candidates to get out of the race so Trump isn't renominated.

"If we're only talking about Donald Trump," he said, "then we're only talking about relitigating elections or Jan. 6, we're only talking about yesterday."

One of the nation’s most popular governors — he holds a 61 percent job approval rating and won reelection to a fourth term by 15 percentage points — Sununu would have been a long shot in the Republican presidential primary.

A political moderate and self-described “pro-choice” Republican who supports restrictions on abortion only later in pregnancy, Sununu is ideologically out of step with much of his party’s base nationally. Fifty-five percent of Republican-aligned voters in a May CNN poll said they would not support him for the GOP nomination “under any circumstances.”

And hailing from the home of the first-in-the-nation primary offered no guarantee of electoral success. Sununu polled far behind both Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in spring surveys of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters. Nearly two-thirds of likely GOP voters in an April University of New Hampshire poll said Sununu “definitely” or “probably” should not run for president.

“If I didn’t win New Hampshire, I’d be done,” Sununu told POLITICO earlier this year. “If I win New Hampshire, everyone’s going to say it wasn’t by enough.”

Sununu also risked missing out on the first debate stage. The governor had yet to score higher than 2 percent in a national poll despite near-weekly appearances on cable television. He would have needed to poll at 1 percent or higher in at least two national surveys and have a minimum of 40,000 unique donors to qualify for the first melee on Aug. 23 in Milwaukee.

Even in declining to run, Sununu — a scion of a New Hampshire political dynasty that includes his father, former Gov. John H. Sununu, and brother, former Sen. John E. Sununu — is likely to play a major role in his state’s primary.

The governor considers many of the Republican contenders friends. He has met with several of them — including an hourlong sitdown with DeSantis last month — to offer advice on navigating New Hampshire’s primary. He previously told The Messenger that he would endorse early and campaign often for his chosen candidate if he didn’t run himself.

But Sununu is unlikely to extend that goodwill to the current frontrunner, Trump. Sununu has said he voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 and would again in 2024 if he wins the nomination for a third consecutive cycle. But he doesn’t believe Trump will, and doesn’t think he could win another general election.

Sununu’s decision not to pursue the presidency also throws a curveball into next year’s gubernatorial contest in New Hampshire.

Democrats hoping for an open seat have already thrown their names in the ring. Cinde Warmington, the sole Democrat on the state’s Executive Council, launched her corner-office campaign last week. Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig formed an exploratory committee for governor earlier this spring. And Republicans were already positioning themselves for possible bids. Sununu told Puck News last month that there was a 50-percent chance he runs for reelection.