Sununu faces 5 GOP challengers from right in primary, but none with Trump endorsement

As a political operative, Corey Lewandowski has done a lot of good things for Donald Trump in New Hampshire. But one thing he couldn’t do was find a viable primary challenger to incumbent Gov. Chris Sununu.

Lewandowski told radio talk show host Howie Carr in February that Trump had asked him to find a candidate who could mount a strong challenge to Sununu in the GOP primary.

"The president is very unhappy with the chief executive officer of the state of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu," Lewandowski told Carr. "And Sununu, in the president's estimation, is someone who's never been loyal to him. And the president said it would be really great if somebody would run against Chris Sununu."

Previous reporting: NH Gov. Sununu skewers Trump as '(expletive) crazy' at a DC roast

While five GOP “somebodies” are on the ballot with Sununu for primary voting on Tuesday, Sept. 13, none of them have Trump’s endorsement, possibly because none of them have much of a chance.

72% of GOP voters likely to vote for Chris Sununu in primary election; 14% undecided

According to a Granite State Poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, 72% of likely GOP primary voters surveyed said they plan to vote for Sununu, with 14% undecided.

Thad Riley of Brentwood, a self-avowed Christian conservative who is fiercely opposed to abortion, came in at 7%. Karen Testerman, founder of the socially conservative Cornerstone advocacy group, garnered 5%. Testerman, a Franklin city councilor, got nearly 10% of the vote when she ran against Sununu in the 2020 primary.

Barely registering in the poll are the other three contenders, each hovering around 1% or less — libertarian-minded Julian M. Acciard of Derry; Jay Lewis of Laconia, who describes himself as “the only biker running for governor;” and Richard A. McMenamon II of Gilmanton, who last year sued the state Department of Health and Human Services in federal court over child protection issues.

No real competition for Sununu in NH primary election

The poll, released on Thursday, is based on responses from 892 likely Republican primary voters. Conducted from Aug. 25 to Aug. 29, it has a 3.3% margin of error. That means Riley and Testerman are statistically tied for second place, according to Survey Center director and political science professor Andrew E. Smith.

“In the primary, Sununu’s got no competition,” he said. “The most conservative or Trumpy wing of the Republican party is not happy with Sununu, but he has the support of most New Hampshire Republicans.

“Sununu is a well-known candidate and 66% of primary voters have a favorable opinion of him; only 11% have an unfavorable opinion of him, and 23% are neutral,” Smith said. “Even 26% of Democrats approve of the job he’s doing as governor.”

It only costs $100 to get your name on the New Hampshire primary ballot, with no need for verified signatures on a petition, as is required in other states. It’s not uncommon for candidates who do not intend to mount a serious campaign to get their name on the ballot. The brass ring for any one of them would have been a Trump endorsement, but that was not to be.

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While Sununu might mock Trump on occasion, referring to him as “f---ing crazy” at a roast-style political dinner earlier this year, he hasn’t faced the consequences of other GOP politicians who’ve distanced themselves from the former president.

“Other than the Gridiron speech, he has stayed clear of directly criticizing Trump, especially while Trump was in office,” said Christopher J. Galdieri, associate professor of politics at Saint Anselm College. “He tried to finesse that and was really successful at it. It’s tough for me to see how Testerman or someone like that gets traction against him.”

Focus on other NH races

In a year when they are focused on unseating an incumbent Democratic U.S. senator, and two incumbent Democrats in the House, Republicans in New Hampshire are reluctant to mess with the one big success story they’ve got going at the moment, says Galdieri.

Trump’s sway over the party and his success in displacing critics elsewhere would suggest otherwise.

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“The hardest part about answering this question about Sununu is that it shouldn’t be working so well for him,” said Wayne Lesperance, provost and professor of political science at New England College. “He ought to be experiencing the challengers we're seeing other Republicans who have become the target of Donald Trump’s ire face across the country.”

Like other observers, Lesperance cites Sununu’s effectiveness as a campaigner, his high visibility across the state and his refusal to cast himself as a culture warrior in purple New Hampshire.

Republicans in New Hampshire who wish Sununu had gone further to the right on issues like abortion, COVID restrictions and vaccinations might have fared better if they’d been united by a Trump endorsement, according to Gregg Moore, state director of Americans for Prosperity, a libertarian/conservative advocacy group.

Each of the three leading challengers to Sununu appeals to different groups within the GOP, says Moore. “Testerman, the founder of Cornerstone, speaks to the social conservatives; and then you see folks like Acciard with much more of a libertarian bent and he’s targeting that group; and Thad Riley seems to be focused on a lot of the Christian groups. He’s a preacher and leaning into that.

“Had President Trump endorsed one of the candidates, that would change the dynamics and create that unity around one candidate, but in the absence of that, each of these groups is targeting certain demographics in the GOP collation and by doing so are splitting their effectiveness.”

Sununu has seen only one legislative defection

One sure sign that none of the challengers was gaining traction was the lack of any defections at the legislative level, except for retiring Republican Sen. Bob Giuda of Warren, who endorsed Riley.

“There are certain parts of the GOP platform Sununu has vacillated on, and life is one of them,” said Giuda. “He has flipflopped on a number of issues that are deal breakers for me, and life is one.” He also cited Sununu’s handling of COVID-19 closures and vaccination protesters.

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Despite tougher political headwinds from his own party in this election cycle, GOP political consultant Patrick Hynes predicts that Sununu will fare as well if not better in the 2022 primary than in 2020, when Testerman got nearly 10%.

“I don’t think Testerman will do better than two years ago,” he said. “Karen is a friend of mine and I like her, but when you run too many times, you damage your credibility because you’re telling people you are a cause candidate and not someone who’s interested in winning.”

Dan Itse, a Republican state representative from 2000 to 2018 and a long-time member of the New Hampshire House Republican Alliance, believes Sununu may still pay a price for alienating thousands of hard-right cultural conservatives in the state when it comes to the general election in November.

The Libertarian factor

In their dissatisfaction with Sununu, many could turn to the Libertarian candidate, Itse said. In 2020, Libertarian Darryl W. Perry drew 11,329 votes. That was only 1.43% of the votes cast but could be enough to swing a close election.

“I’m pretty sure there will be a Libertarian candidate,” said Itse. “They have at least three serious individuals.

"The long-term history of voting patterns in New Hampshire, which I have observed for 30 years, is that if the Republican candidate isn’t conservative or liberty-minded enough, the libertarians and those with libertarian leanings will vote for the Libertarian candidate … or they sit on their hands,” Itse said.

It remains to be seen if a Libertarian will qualify for the ballot in November. Sununu doesn’t appear to be too concerned.

After the N.H. Libertarian Party came under fire for tweets on Aug. 24 and 25, mocking the Holocaust and the death of Sen. John McCain, Sununu in one of his now frequent CNN appearances decried the tweets as “horribly insulting” and said, “That should pretty much be the end of the Libertarian Party in New Hampshire.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: UNH poll indicates NH Gov. Sununu trouncing GOP primary challengers