Not for the last time this year, New Hampshire is making national political news. The race for governor opened up after Republican Chris Sununu announced he will not seek a record fifth two-year term. Sununu also passed on a run for the presidential nomination at a time when New Hampshire hopes to hold on to its status as the nation’s first primary. Joining us now for analysis is Dr. Andrew Smith, director of the UNH Survey Center and professor of political science.
How surprised were you by Governor Sununu’s announcement?
Moderately surprised, but not terribly. It's been some time since Sununu has been making decisions about what to do next. He first was considering a round for the U.S. Senate back in 2022, and he decided not to do that. He was considering running for president, and he decided not to do that and considered running again for governor and decided not to do that. I think he did make an interesting comment when he declined to run and that was, 'You shouldn't be in public service as a career.' He's trained as an engineer, not as a political scientist or a lawyer. So, I think that it kind of makes sense that he wants to get back to some of the things that he's done before.
So, do you think he's done in politics, or is this just a pause?
I think this is a pause. I think he will be engaged in politics. I think that he's certainly got an opportunity to help decide who the next Governor of New Hampshire will be and I'm pretty sure he'll be working for some candidate running for president, some candidate not named Trump. We don't know who that is yet, but we'll see. It's also important to remember that Sununu is a young guy; he's in his 40’s. He's got a young family. You don't make much money as governor of New Hampshire and I think this is an opportunity for him to get his family on good financial footing going into the future too. I think would be we tend to forget about those aspects of life when we look at politicians and what they do.
Why has he spurned these chances to run for higher office? The National Republican Party really wanted him to run for Senate in 2022 and then also, as you mentioned, for president.
Well, I think you have to go back to his background. He's trained as an engineer. He's not trained as a politician or a lawyer. Secondly, as a governor, you get to run something. So, you're actually running an organization and you can show deliverable results. When he ran for Senate, one of the comments that he made, and this is not unique to Sununu, is that the Senate basically you just talk. You really don't get to do anything. You don't get to administer anything. You don't get to really run anything. You're just flapping your gums down there in DC and I don't think that was something that was very attracted to him, both in his experience as a governor or his experience as an engineer. And then for president, I think that was more of a realistic decision. He didn't see a way for him to be able to pull off a win there. We'll see what he hopes to do with that down the road. One of the things that I would keep open for him or just keep in the back of your mind is that his father, another engineer, was a governor. He didn't want to run for Senate, but he ended up as Chief of Staff for George H.W. Bush, after helping him win the nomination back in 1988. Chris Sununu grew up in Washington when his father was Chief of Staff, and Chief of Staff is a position where you get to do something. You're running the White House, and you're arguably the second most powerful person in Washington after the president. So, maybe he steps up, and it may be an opportunity for him to follow in his father's footsteps and become a Chief of Staff someday.
I read one analysis that was lamenting Sununu’s exit as a sign that his type of Northeast Republican style is over. Do you think that has any validity?
I don't think so. I think there's still a number of other Republicans up here that fit that older, traditional janky mold Republicans. There's a couple of people running for Senate, running for governor or ostensibly running for governor in New Hampshire right now. Kelly Ayotte, who was a Senator, she certainly fits that mold of a more traditional, moderate, New England Republican. Chuck Morse, who ran for Senate back in 2022 and didn't get the Republican nomination, but he's been long involved in state politics, being the State Senator and president of the State Senate. He's another person who I think fits that Sununu mold. So, there's still quite a few of them around here. It's just that the overall electorate in New Hampshire as well as the rest of New England has been drifting more and more democratic over the last several decades.
Ratings agencies who look at these things moved New Hampshire into the toss-up category with Sununu’s exit. Break down the race as it stands at this point. Many months to go, of course, but who's running and who's looking good in their campaign so far?
I would step back and say, first of all, the New Hampshire is a state that leans democratic. I'd say it's about +3%, maybe as high as +5% Democratic in presidential election years, when turnout is equally high among both parties. So, this being a presidential year coming up in 2024, it should favor any Democratic candidate over any Republican candidate, just as generic candidates. That said, the Republicans have three names that are being bandied about. Chuck Morse, who's already said that he's running. Kelly Ayotte, who said that wait for an important decision from her. And the third person is its current Commissioner of Education, Frank Edelblut, who gave Chris O'Neill a good run for his money in the Republican primary way back in 2016. So, those are the three on the Republican side. On the Democratic side, we see the classic battle between the more progressive and the more middle of the road wings of the Democratic Party. Cinde Warmington, who is an Executive Councilor from Concord is certainly among the more progressive side. Mayor Joyce Craig of Manchester, says she is not running for reelection, as mayor, she says she's running for governor. She fits in the same mold to say a Maggie Hasson or a Jeanne Shaheen in that wing of the party, kind of not flashy but let's just govern wing of the party. So, that's going to be interesting, but we'll have to see how all of those people perform with the exception of Kelly Ayotte, none of them have been in a general election statewide. Chuck Morse is the only one that's really run for that kind of a high of an office. So, they're kind of frankly, untested candidates for the most part other than Ayotte.
Let's talk about the presidential race. Let's begin with the Republican side right now. As we speak, there haven't been debates or any votes yet, of course, but how do New Hampshire Republicans look at the 2024 presidential race right now?
Again, first of all, it's summertime in New Hampshire. There's not a lot of people who are paying close attention to the race. We have to, but most people are worried about summer vacations and kids and things like that. But we're seeing that a lot of it is name recognition. Donald Trump, who's leading at 37%. Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida is at 23%. Then you've got a number of candidates that are in those single digits. Tim Scott, Chris Christie, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, and Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley. So, they're all in that range where they're in single digits, but that doesn't mean they're out of the race. So, one of the cautionary things I tell people is to go back to 2015. In the summer of 2015, Bernie Sanders was in the 15%-20% range in polls, and he ended up winning the New Hampshire primary with over 60% of the vote that year. So, there's a lot of ground to go. Another cautionary tale is to remember back in 1992, Bill Clinton didn't even declare that he was a candidate for president until November of 1991 and he came in second in the New Hampshire primary and went on to become president in 1992.
The Comeback Kid election. So, what I hear you saying is it's too early to count out Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in your mind.
Absolutely. It's way too early to count out anybody. Just think, we haven't had a single debate. Voters aren't engaged. Donald Trump certainly has some legal difficulties and potential legal difficulties to for him to worry about. And you know, there's a lot of things going on in the world right now that could make any of these candidates bump up. The one person I would pay a little bit of attention to is Tim Scott. He's been running a very positive campaign. He’s been doing quite a bit of advertising here in New Hampshire, and he's got a lot of money. So, look at the money because right now in the summertime, it's far more important for candidates to be out raising money, building up their war chest to put themselves in a position to effectively campaign when the voters eventually start paying attention, which really won't be until mid-late in the Fall of this year.
What about on the Democratic side? We've seen in some polling that RFK Jr.'s upstart campaign is taking a bite out of Biden's numbers. Is that bearing out in New Hampshire at all?
No. The short answer is no, but it doesn't mean Biden is the desired candidate for Democrats. So, currently we're seeing that Biden's at 70%, RFK Jr. is at 10%, Marianne Williamson at 4%. So, Biden's got to significant lead. The other thing about that is if you look at which candidate people say they would not vote for, it’s RFK, Jr. If you look at the favorability ratings of candidates for Biden among Democrats, he's got 65% favorable, 17%, unfavorable. RFK Jr 9% favorable, 69% unfavorable. But if you ask Democrats, are they excited about the Biden nomination? Not really. Only 36% say they're enthusiastic about Biden, 44% say they would be satisfied. So, they're kind of grudgingly behind Biden, largely because there's no alternative. One of the questions that we did ask that was, let's say it's kind of an interesting question, but kind of a fun question is, we asked respondents to use one word to describe Joe Biden or Robert F. Kennedy, for example. For Joe Biden, the single word that people use to describe him is ‘old.’ That's most frequent. When you look at Robert F. Kennedy, the kind of words you see are, ‘insane, dangerous, conspiracy, crazy, crackpot.’ So, I don't think there's a lot of room for a Robert F. Kennedy campaign. I think you might see Republicans giving him a lot of money to try to spoil the race a little bit for Biden, but I don't think that he's got a real chance of winning this.
So, let me wind up by asking you about a recent poll in which your Polling Center found that about four in five primary voters in New Hampshire are confident that their vote will be counted accurately. I suppose you can read that result two ways. I mean, four out of five, not bad. But then, on the other hand, if 20% of voters say, 'Well, my vote's not going to be counted right,' that's a little concerning, isn't it?
Well, it is, from that perspective overall but it's not too surprising. If you think of the kind of language that's been used in the last couple of elections by the Trump campaign, that the election was rigged, that votes weren't counted properly. And so, that's been a message that has resonated with Trump voters for quite some time. But we've been asking this kind of question in New Hampshire for a long time and for the most part, people think their votes are going to be counted accurately. We've been asking this going back to the 2000 election and people think that their votes are going to be counted accurately, prior to the election. After the election, people are really confident that their vote was counted accurately. So, there's always that sense that maybe this time, it's going to be different and it won’t be counted accurately but New Hampshire has really never had any significant problems with vote counting. We still have paper ballots that are used, and paper ballot records of all the votes that are cast in the state.
So, is that 80% result down from past measurements? Or is it about where it usually is?
It’s about where it usually is. It'll go up to over 90% after people voted. We also ask the question, ‘How easy is it to vote?’ Which again, relates to some of the language that's out there about restricting voting, and over well over 90% say that it was very easy for them to vote in the election. So, it's easy to vote in New Hampshire and the votes are counted accurately here.
