Trump adviser says former president hungry for someone to primary challenge NH GOP Gov. Sununu

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A longtime Donald Trump adviser says the former president asked him to potentially find someone to launch a credible primary challenge against Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, who’s running for reelection this year.

Corey Lewandowski, who served as campaign manager during Trump’s stunning 2016 GOP presidential nomination run and has remained a close outside political adviser to the former president, tells Fox News that Trump’s “frustrated” with Sununu.

Lewandowski, a New Hampshire resident, broke the news during an interview Wednesday on “The Howie Carr Show,” a conservative radio talk show popular with Trump loyalists.

Lewandowski told Carr, who’s a strong Trump supporter, that the former president tasked him with “potentially finding someone to run against Chris Sununu, to make sure they understand that the ‘America First’ agenda is more than just a saying. It’s actually about putting people first and listening to what constituents have to say.”

Sununu supported Trump during the 2016 general election and again as he unsuccessfully ran for reelection in 2020. And the governor had a strong working relationship with the Trump White House, including close ties with Vice President Mike Pence.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu speaks with Fox News at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership gathering, in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Nov. 9, 2021.
(Fox News)

But over the past 15 months, Sununu has pushed back against Trump’s unproven claims that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” with “massive fraud” and “stolen.” He’s also stated a couple of times that the GOP is larger than any one person, which was perceived as a swipe at the former president, who remains the most popular and powerful figure in the Republican Party. 

And asked Sunday in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” whether he’d like to have Trump campaign with him as he runs for reelection, Sununu answered, “I don’t need anyone to campaign with me. Look, I’m a big believer that, as a candidate, you’ve got to stand on your own two feet.”

While his approval ratings soared during the first year and a half of the coronavirus pandemic due to his muscular response to the worst pandemic to strike the globe in a century, restrictions implemented by the governor have not sat well with many on the far right. And Sununu’s decision last November to pass on a 2022 Republican challenge against Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, a top GOP target in the midterms, angered plenty in his party in New Hampshire and across the country.

Lewandowski told Fox News that Trump was “frustrated about that for sure.”

Corey Lewandowski speaks at a anti-Trump impeachment rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Oct. 7, 2019.

“The president was clearly disappointed that Gov. Sununu did not run for U.S. Senate because we thought that with him in the race, we could win that seat. And he waited a long time to make the decision, leaving the other potential candidates at a disadvantage for a race is very winnable at a time where it’s important that we take back the Senate,” Lewandowski said.

Lewandowski argued that “if someone were to run against [Sununu], they could be successful. I think what you’ve seen is that Chris Sununu does not have a lot of money in his campaign account and there are a lot of families who are inversely impacted by his decisions in the world of COVID, about the ways our schools were closed, that our kids continue to be masked…. I think there are a lot of people over the last two years who have raised issues and concerns.”

Asked by Fox News if Trump would endorse a primary challenger against Sununu, Lewandowski said, “What we do know is that the president has never shied away from getting engaged in races where he thinks an America First candidate is there and someone who he believes is best able to serve. He has a history and pattern of engaging in races, particularly in primaries.”

Lewandowski, who mulled a GOP run for the Senate in his home state in the 2020 cycle, told Fox News he wasn’t interested in launching a gubernatorial bid of his own.

Fox News reached out to the former president’s political team regarding Lewandowski’s comments, but they declined to respond. And Sununu’s political advisers didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A Trump loyalist in New Hampshire emphasized to Fox News that “there is a big appetite” to find a primary challenger to take on Sununu, “especially after his CNN comments this past weekend.”

The supporter of the former president, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, said, “I don’t think [the governor] realizes this,” adding that “we’ve got a couple of things lined up. And they’re real.”

The New Hampshire GOP declined to weigh in, noting that, according to its bylaws, it must remain neutral in Republican primaries.

While Sununu’s poll numbers have declined from the stratosphere over the past six months, they remain in positive territory. And among Republicans are still sky-high. Eighty-six percent of GOP voters approved of how the governor was handling his duties in a University of New Hampshire poll conducted in December and 81% approved in a St. Anselm College survey conducted last month. Sununu’s favorable rating in the St. Anselm College poll among Republicans stood at 79%, six points lower than Trump’s 85% favorable rating.

Two veteran Republican strategists in New Hampshire – who also asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely – questioned whom Trump supporters could find to credibly take on the governor.

“I just don’t think there’s going to be a credible candidate who can run against Sununu in the primary,” one of the strategists told Fox News. 

The other offered similar sentiments before warning of the consequences of a serious primary, predicting that “this is a no-win situation for Republicans in New Hampshire.”

Two long-shot primary challengers are already in the GOP gubernatorial race. Among them is conservative activist and former Franklin city councilor Karen Testerman, who challenged Sununu in the 2020 primary. The governor soundly defeated Testerman by a 90%-9% margin.

President Trump smiles as his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski speaks during a rally at Total Sports Park in Washington, Michigan, on April 28, 2018.
(Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Lewandowski last September lost his position steering Trump’s super PAC following sexual misconduct allegations that grabbed national headlines. A Trump spokesperson at the time said, “Corey Lewandowski will be going on to other endeavors and we very much want to thank him for his service. He will no longer be associated with Trump World.”

But Lewandowski told Fox News, “I haven’t spoken to the president in the last 45 minutes, but other than that I speak to him on a regular basis.”

And he noted that he was recently meeting with the former president at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

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