Sununu passes on presidential campaign

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu will not run for president in 2024, the Republican said Monday. But his decision was also a warning: A crowded field could lead to former President Donald Trump’s renomination and doom the party in 2024.

“If we’re only talking about Donald Trump, then we’re only talking about relitigating elections or Jan. 6,” Sununu told CNN’s Dana Bash. “We’re only talking about yesterday.”

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.

“Every candidate needs to understand the responsibility of getting out and getting out quickly if it’s not working. And I can be more candid about that as the governor of the first-in-the-nation primary [state], in calling candidates out,” Sununu said Monday on CNN. “There are 12 people in the race. I don’t think all 12 of them firmly believe that they can be president, I think a lot of them just want to audition to be in the Cabinet or vice president. And at this time, there’s no place for that.”

"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 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.

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 setting himself up to be a potential kingmaker 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. Sununu’s decision not to run also frees up his donors, with whom he’s been meeting over the past couple of months as he mulled a bid.

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.

“Right now, Donald Trump’s cost us from the U.S. Senate to governorships to school board seats. His message cost the Republican Party dearly across the country,” Sununu said on CNN. “He can’t win in November of ‘24.”

Sununu’s decision not to pursue the presidency also throws a curveball into next year’s gubernatorial contest in New Hampshire. Sununu did not weigh in about whether he plans to run for reelection on CNN, in his Washington Post op-ed or in an email to supporters early Monday afternoon.

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.

Republicans in New Hampshire are likely salivating at a possible open seat as well, including former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte and former state Senate President Chuck Morse, who lost his race for U.S. Senate last year. Sununu told Puck News last month that there was a 50-percent chance he runs for reelection.