The Republican governor of New Hampshire, who was mentioned as a potential challenger to Donald Trump in the Republican primaries, has written an op-ed on how best to defeat Donald Trump.
Key Point: The Republican governor of New Hampshire, who was mentioned as a potential challenger to Donald Trump in the Republican primaries, has written an op-ed on how best to defeat Donald Trump.
How To Make Sure Donald Trump Never Gets Into the Oval Office
The 2024 Republican presidential primary contest is shaping up as one like no other.
Donald Trump, the most recent Republican president, is running to return to office. In spite of — or, perhaps, because of — he’s under criminal indictment in four different jurisdictions, Trump has a major lead in every poll of the Republican contest.
The former president is leading, while most of the other candidates running have been muted in their criticisms of him, and especially reluctant to criticize Trump following the indictments. Ron DeSantis, who was supposed to be Trump’s strongest challenger, has run what’s been called one of the worst campaigns in the history of politics.
And the candidates willing to directly criticize Trump, like Chris Christie, Mike Pence, and Asa Hutchinson, are polling in single digits, or worse.
One candidate who was seen as a possible challenger to Trump is New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a popular Republican who has long sought to keep the former president at arm’s length. Sununu ultimately decided not to run for president, telling CNN in June that “if we’re only talking about Donald Trump, then we’re only talking about relitigating elections or Jan. 6… We’re only talking about yesterday.”
But that doesn’t mean that Sununu hasn’t been keeping an eye on the race. The governor wrote an op-ed for the New York Times Monday in which he argued how the GOP can defeat Trump.
“If Republicans Narrow the Field, We Will Beat Trump” is the headline of the op-ed, which is far from the first time this sort of argument has been made, especially that Trump, just as he did in 2016, stands to benefit from a crowded Republican primary field.
Sununu begins by offering advice to the rest of the field, ahead of the first debate this week.
“To win, they must break free of Mr. Trump’s drama, step out of his shadow, go on offense, attack, and present their case. Then they need to see if they can catch fire this fall — and if they can’t, they need to step aside, because winnowing down the field of candidates is the single best chance to stop Mr. Trump,” the governor writes.
