NH Gov. Chris Sununu on Why Fellow Anti-Trump Republicans Will Support Him No Matter What April 16, 2024 Vol. XVII, No. 3 2:13 pm “I’m supporting not just the president, but the Republican administration.” Many Democrats are having a difficult time understanding why so many Republicans are continuing to support Donald Trump for president despite
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NH Gov. Chris Sununu on Why Fellow Anti-Trump Republicans Will Support Him No Matter What
April 16, 2024 Vol. XVII, No. 3 2:13 pm
“I’m supporting not just the president, but the Republican administration.”
Many Democrats are having a difficult time understanding why so many Republicans are continuing to support Donald Trump for president despite his seemingly endless list of alleged transgressions. However, having watched politics my entire life, it’s as simple as the rhetorical question, Do you really think that Republicans should have allowed Hillary Clinton to win the White House and pick those three US Supreme Court justices who tilted the court to the right and overturned Roe v. Wade?
In other words, it’s ideological; it’s about conservative notions of right and wrong that are far more important than the elected officials carrying the flag in the front of the parade. Here is an example:
Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire does not like Donald Trump. After the January 6, 2021 rioting at the US Capitol, Sununu issued a statement saying there is no doubt “that President Trump’s rhetoric and actions contributed to the insurrection.”
Last year, Gov. Sununu enthusiastically endorsed former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley against Trump in the GOP primary race. And just this past Sunday, on ABC’s “This Week,” Sununu reiterated to George Stephanopoulos his conclusion that Trump was complicit in January 6.
So, why is Sununu now enthusiastically supporting Trump? The answer is in these select responses, edited for brevity, to questions from the interview Sunday with George Stephanopoulos:
GS Question: Will your support for Donald Trump continue even if he’s convicted in Manhattan?
Gov. Sununu: “Yeah, look, this — this trial is not going to have major political ramifications; people see it more as reality TV.”
“No one should be surprised by my support.” “I’m supporting not just the president, but the Republican administration.”
“For me, it’s not about [Trump] as much as it is having a Republican administration — Republican secretaries, Republican rules, a sense of where states’ rights come first, individual rights come first, parents’ rights come first.”
“At the end of the day, [many in America] want that culture change of the Republican Party, and if we have Trump as the standard bearer — we’ll take it if we have to. That’s how badly America wants a culture change.”
In his final question, George Stephanopoulos asked Gov. Chris Sununu if he would continue to support Trump for president even if he is convicted in the classified documents case and the Manhattan hush money case, and even though Sununu believes that Trump contributed to the “insurrection” on January 6 and lied about the last election being stolen.
Gov. Sununu replied, “Yes, me and 51 percent of America.”
Trump leads Biden in the states that matter most
Forty of the 50 states are predictable. They have voted for the same party in at least the last four presidential races. We know Vermont is going to vote for the Democratic nominee and Wyoming for the Republican. Only ten states, including North Carolina, have flipped parties in their presidential choice since 2008. That was the year North Carolinians voted for Democrat Barack Obama. North Carolina has voted Republican ever since.
Nationally, the Real Clear Politics (RCP) polling average shows Trump at 42% in a five-way race. Biden has 40.2%; third-party candidates Kennedy (9.3%), West (1.6%), and Stein (1.5%). In a two-way race, Biden and Trump are tied at about 45% each. We are truly an equally divided nation.
But national polls are irrelevant to the Electoral College, where 270 votes are needed to win the presidency. Biden has a predictable 226 votes; Trump 219. They will need to make up the difference in the seven battleground states in order to get to 270 votes.
Polling in the seven battleground states, where it matters the most, shows Trump leading Biden in all but one. Here is today’s RCP spread in each state: Arizona (Trump +4.5%), Georgia (Trump +3.8%), Michigan (Trump +2.8%), Nevada (Trump +3.2%), North Carolina (Trump +4.0%), Pennsylvania (Biden +0.1%), and Wisconsin (Trump +0.6%).
To understand why Trump is leading Biden despite his many trials and tribulations, consider Gallup’s latest poll showing that the most important problems facing the nation are immigration and the economy. Per RCP, only 32.2% “Approve” of the job Biden is doing with immigration; only 39.7% approve of how Biden is handling the economy.
Gov. Sununu summed up why fellow anti-Trump Republicans will support him no matter what when he said this past Sunday on ABC, “It’s not about just supporting Trump. It’s getting rid of what we have today. It’s about understanding that inflation is crushing families. It’s understanding that this border issue is not a Texas issue. It’s a 50-state issue, right, that has to be brought under control.”
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John N. Davis
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