As I am sure you know, Sun-King Sununu … after months of teasing a Senate run … bowed out of a run against Hassan, the most vulnerable incumbent in America. Almost immediately afterward, former Senator Kelly Ayotte also chickened out.
This has the talking heads outside New Hampshire scratching their heads. From an article I read yesterday on RealClearPolitics:
Nobody wants to run for the Senate as a Republican in this state. Well, not exactly nobody. But nobody who isn’t, for want of a better term, a relative nobody. That astonishing phenomenon is rendered all the more staggering when you consider that the incumbent, Maggie Hassan, is regarded as the most vulnerable Democrat in a Senate where, more than usual, every seat counts. If the Republicans beat Ms. Hassan and a series of other dominos fall in the direction the polls suggest they will, the GOP will take possession of the Senate …
So guess who is to blame according to NH-NeverTrump … Donald Trump, OF COURSE:
“You have Trump people here who control the party, and regular conservative Republicans don’t want to try to appeal to them,” said Andrew Smith, director of the UNH Survey Center. “The Trumpistas may not be chasing people away, but a lot of people don’t want to put up with them. There have been ugly incidents.” … “The Trump element in the party doesn’t have the status or capability to win the general election,” said Mr. Rath, a onetime member of the Republican National Committee. “Many people don’t want to have anything to do with them. The party now is full of true believers, but there aren’t enough of them to win an election.”
Needless to say, when Andrew Smith refers to “regular conservative Republicans” he means RINOs whose idea of conservatism is talking about the need for balanced budgets and low business taxes, while ignoring the issues that are actually driving GOP voters … such as woke corporations turning America into a medical-security-state; public schools indoctrinating students with CRT; and open borders.
As for Rath, what he means by “true believers” is voters who have realized that the “regular conservative Republicans” … e.g., Bush, McCain, Romney, Sununu … are globalist/endless-war snake oil salesmen who were never on their side.
