Dem
51
GOP
49
Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) has now formally announced that he will not run for a fifth 2-year term in 2024. He had hinted at this before, but now it is official. Earlier he said something about needing to go earn some real money to put his three children through college. Sununu is not your standard-issue Republican. He has an S.B. degree from M.I.T. in civil and environmental engineering and worked for 10 years cleaning up hazardous waste sites around the country before getting into politics.
Sununu's decision could set off a free-for-all. New Hampshire is a bluish swing state. It voted for the Democratic candidate in the past five presidential elections. Both senators (both of whom are former governors) are Democrats. But Republicans control both chambers of the state legislature. Both parties have plenty of potential gubernatorial candidates and the race for governor is probably a toss-up given the swingish nature of the state. Two Democrats, Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington and Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig, are already in. More could follow now that Sununu is out. One Republican, former senator Kelly Ayotte, just said that she will have big news in a few days, so she is almost certainly in, but there could be others as well. Ayotte is better known than either Democrat, but in a presidential election year, more Democrats might turn out to vote than Republicans. (V)