Despite repeatedly saying nasty things about President Trump and pimping himself out on cable news, when you say Chris Sununu to the average American, they have no idea who that is. That’s probably why disgraced Liz Chaney is polling better than Sununu in a theoretical 2024 presidential primary.
Republicans know who that is, so Cheney polls at about 3%, in line with Nikki Haley, who is actually running.
Sununu has not announced the 2024 run, and while speculation is high, polling is not. While Haley has polled as high as 7%, Sununu can’t rise above the one-percenter. This means that if the primary were held today and he only had to run against Asa Hutchinson, Mike Pompeo, Chris Christie, and Larry Hogan, he could still lose.
Job one for his handlers is to find ways to get him some name recognition.
Ron DeSantis did that by defending liberty and opposing things like race-shaming children or exposing them to inappropriate sexual content. Chris Sununu tried to get attention from Republicans by refusing to enforce obscenity laws in the state when he’s not openly embracing them.
Where a majority of Republican primary voters oppose third-trimester abortion, Sununu scowls at being tricked into making them illegal and swears he’d reverse that given a chance.
Most GOP primary voters are strong supporters of border security because it’s the law, and it reduces human trafficking and gang and drug cartel traffic into the US. Chris Sununu has a spotty record on the subject despite being the governor of a border state.
Sununu couldn’t take Federal COVID bribe money fast enough but thinks his tepid reversal on things like lockdowns, fines, and masks, absent a state mandate to prevent them at the local level, will win him Republican votes.
But he’s good on guns and taxes, which won’t hold up outside the borders because he’s bad on just about everything else. And it’s an albatross he can’t talk his way out of nor in any meaningful manner to get him to poll better than Liz Cheney, who is so bad at being a Republican she couldn’t win her own re-election primary.
There is one bright note for Chris. If he does run, he’ll probably get blown out in the New Hampshire First in the Nation primary by both Trump and DeSantis, which will give him time to find what’s left of his dignity and run for governor again.
If someone else better doesn’t try to use that fallout to primary him out at the state level, Granite Staters like him better than just about any Democrat which isn’t saying much, but given the trajectory of the legislature, another term of Sununu might be the only thing standing between us and turning into Vermont.
Note: And yes, we are all wondering what a “Theorhterical Republican Presidential Primary” is. That scrambled headline has been corrected.