Who is Chris Sununu? New Hampshire GOP governor considers run for president in 2024
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Individual responsibility. Local control. Limited government.
Those are the values New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu says he would focus a 2024 bid for the presidency on if he decides to seek the GOP nomination.
Sununu is hanging his presidential hopes on his free-market, conservative values and the state's "Live Free or Die" approach to government.
"Those are the things that have made New Hampshire so successful and clearly something I think we could bring across to the entire country," Sununu said in an interview with USA TODAY.
Who is Chris Sununu?
Age: 48
Wife: Valerie
Children: Calvin, Edie and Leo
Degree: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.); environmental engineering
Siblings: 7
Political ideology: free-market conservatism
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Who is Sununu's family?
Politics runs in Sununu's family. His father, John H. Sununu, is a former New Hampshire governor, and his brother, John E. Sununu, is a former U.S. congressman and senator.
But it's his mother, Nancy, who Sununu says inspired him to run for office.
"People think my father got us into politics, got me into politics. No, it's my mother that ran for the school board first. Because when you have eight kids, and you want to protect your family's interests, you run for the school board," he said.
Sununu was serving as CEO of Waterville Valley Resort, a ski area his family owns, when he decided to run for political office.
He served on the New Hampshire Executive Council, which oversees state spending and approves judicial appointments, prior to winning election to governor in 2017. He is currently serving his fourth term as governor.
What did Sununu do as governor of New Hampshire?
Sununu says his approach to governing has been "give a little to get a lot" from lawmakers in his state on the other side of the aisle.
His efforts are not always successful. He fought unsuccessfully to keep the death penalty in place and was met with backlash from protesters, chanting "breathe free or die," for issuing a pandemic-era mask mandate.
As governor Sununu also signed a 24-week abortion ban into law. He describes himself as a pro-choice governor but draws a line at the seventh, eighth and ninth months of pregnancy.
He also signed a law that prohibits state and local law enforcement from enforcing federal firearms regulations that conflict with New Hampshire law.
Where does Sununu stand on key political issues?
He has been critical of President Joe Biden's immigration policies, especially when it comes to drug trafficking and the opioid epidemic. He supported DeSantis' migrant relocation flights from Florida to liberal states and has pushed the Biden administration to empower state and local law enforcement to patrol the northern border with Canada.
But he also opposed sending his state's National Guard to the border to enforce former President Donald Trump's immigration policies, saying he would not send "New Hampshire troops to the southern border to separate families.”
Sununu sits down with USA TODAY: Don't ban TikTok from Americans' phones, says NH governor and possible 2024 GOP candidate
Last year, Sununu signed an executive order banning TikTok on state-owned devices because he deemed the company's Chinese ownership a security threat. He told USA TODAY he opposes a nationwide ban of TikTok on Americans' personal devices.
Sununu backs U.S. military aid to Ukraine and said in a Washington Post op-ed that he views a potential conflict with China as directly linked to to Russia's war on the European nation.
"U.S. resolve is being tested, and Xi Jinping is watching. It is easy to see what happens next: Russia and China get stronger; the United States gets weaker. China, emboldened, sees an opening in Taiwan, conflict cascades, and the United States faces an existential threat," Sununu wrote.
Francesca Chambers is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY. Follow her on Twitter @fran_chambers.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Who is Chris Sununu, the NH GOP governor mulling a 2024 bid?
