MANCHESTER, N.H. – A brash Gov. Chris Sununu has a message for Nikki Haley’s rivals for the Republican presidential nomination – it is time to get out of the race.
“This can be a race between two folks – Nikki Haley and Donald Trump. That’s it,” Sununu acknowledged as he spoke with reporters after endorsing Haley for president on Tuesday, at a city corridor occasion at a ski lodge in New Hampshire’s largest metropolis.
Sununu, the favored Republican governor of the state that holds the primary main and second general contest within the GOP presidential nominating calendar, emphasised that “with all due respect to all the other candidates, this is a two-person race at this point.”
The endorsement will possible have little speedy impression on the previous president, who stays the commanding front-runner for the GOP nomination as he makes his third straight White Home run.
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Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire (proper) endorses former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, at a marketing campaign occasion in Manchester N.H. on Dec. 12, 2023 (Fox Information – Paul Steinhauser)
However Sununu’s a lot coveted backing of Haley, the previous two-term South Carolina governor who later served as ambassador to the United Nations within the Trump administration, is seen as a setback for the 2 different Republican presidential candidates who had been additionally within the working to land the endorsement – former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“Chris and Ron have been running great campaigns. Both are very good friends. Great governors in their own right,” Sununu mentioned in a Fox Information Digital interview after endorsing Haley.
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However he added that one of many causes he selected to endorse Haley is that “she’s really connecting on the campaign trail. Her numbers are moving.”
“I’m behind Nikki Haley. I think they should all get out frankly, including former President Trump. I think everyone should kind of clear the way,” Sununu mentioned when requested about Haley’s rivals.
However he rapidly acknowledged “they’re going to keep campaigning.”
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is endorsed by New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu at a marketing campaign city corridor in Manchester, New Hampshire, on December 12, 2023. (REUTERS/Brian Snyder)
Sununu’s endorsement of Haley seems to be an enormous blow for Christie, who simply as he did in his unsuccessful 2016 White Home bid, is as soon as once more betting all of it on New Hampshire.
Sununu informed Fox Information that he hadn’t talked to Christie forward of his endorsement of Haley.
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Haley, requested by Fox Information if Christie ought to depart the race within the wake of her touchdown Sununu’s endorsement, mentioned “Chris is my friend and I will never tell anyone to get out of the race. It’s a personal issue to get in. It’s a personal decision to get out. That’s Chris’ decision to make.”
Sununu will be part of Haley for 3 extra marketing campaign occasions on Wednesday and Thursday in New Hampshire. The governor can be stumping with Haley throughout the Granite State as Christie returns Wednesday to New Hampshire for 2 occasions.
Christie’s marketing campaign, in a press release, emphasised that Sununu’s endorsement of Haley “puts us down one vote in New Hampshire and when Governor Christie is back in Londonderry tomorrow, he’ll continue to tell the unvarnished truth about Donald Trump and earn that one missing vote and thousands more.”
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As he labored to land Sununu’s endorsement, Christie spotlighted that on the subject of Trump, he and the New Hampshire governor had been on the identical web page, as two of probably the most vocal GOP critics of the previous president.
“Who does he want standing across from Donald Trump when this gets down to a one-on-one? Who does he think can take him on in a direct way? Who’s been saying the same things as Chris Sununu has been saying for the last couple of years about Donald Trump, trying to move the party in a new direction? And I think I’m the person who has the clearest, strongest voice on that,” Christie emphasised in a Fox Information Digital interview a few weeks in the past.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (proper), who’s working a second time for the Republican presidential nomination, groups up with New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (heart) at a city corridor in Nashua, N.H. on Nov. 2023. (Fox Information)
Christie in latest weeks has additionally stepped up his criticism of Haley’s way more measured jabs at Trump.
Haley, at Tuesday’s occasion, as soon as once more repeated her well-worn line that Trump was “the right president at the right time.”
Requested if Haley’s extra passive assaults on Trump had been a difficulty, Sununu informed Fox Information “not at all.”
“A candidate has to be talking about what they’re about, not just what the other guy isn’t. I think there’s always an opportunity to talk about the former president in terms of where he succeeded and where he didn’t – and there’s a lot of didn’t there. But I think Nikki’s done a great job not just talking about him but what she’s about,” he argued.
And Haley emphasised to reporters that “I talk about my differences with Trump.”
“Anti-Trumpers don’t think I hate him enough. Pro-Trumpers don’t think I love him enough,” she added. “At the end of the day I put my truths out there and let the chips fall where they may.”
Haley, who has loved momentum within the polls in latest months, thanks partly to well-received performances within the first three GOP presidential main debates, leapfrogged DeSantis for second place in New Hampshire and her dwelling state, which holds the primary southern contest. Christie stands in third place in a lot of the newest surveys in New Hampshire.
Haley additionally goals to make a battle of it in Iowa – the state whose Jan. 15 caucuses lead off the GOP nominating calendar. The newest polls recommend she is near pulling even with DeSantis for a distant second place behind Trump.
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Whereas Sununu’s backing of Haley can also be a setback for DeSantis, it possible will not sting as a lot because it does for Christie.
DeSantis is usually concentrating on Iowa, the place he enjoys the endorsement of Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds. He is additionally backed by Bob Vander Plaats, president of The Household Chief, a high social conservative group in a state the place evangelical voters play an outsized position in Republican politics.
Florida Gov Ron DeSantis (left), a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, groups up briefly with GOP Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, on August 19, 2023 in Londonderry, N.H. (Fox Information – Paul Steinhauser)
DeSantis, who’s spending most of his time in Iowa, is predicted again in New Hampshire on Friday.
“What happens in New Hampshire will be significantly impacted by the outcome in Iowa, where the true Trump alternative will emerge. And when Ron DeSantis comes out in that position, he will be joined by over 60 New Hampshire state legislators who stand ready to take the fight to the establishment and their candidates of yesteryear to return power to grassroots conservatives,” DeSantis marketing campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo argued in a press release.
And at a city corridor in Iowa hosted by CNN, DeSantis on Tuesday night argued that “even a campaigner as good as Chris Sununu is not going to be able to paper over Nikki Haley being an establishment candidate.”
