CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who considered but decided against runs for president and U.S. Senate, said Wednesday he will not seek re-election in 2024.
Sununu, who has been governor since 2017, said in an email that he will not seek a fifth two-year term.
“This was not an easy decision, as I truly love serving as governor,” he said.
“Public service should never be a career, and the time is right for another Republican to lead our great state.”
Sununu, 48, did not say what his immediate plans were and did not endorse anyone to succeed him. He said he made his decision after discussions with his wife, Valerie, and their children.
Shortly after his announcement, Chuck Morse, former New Hampshire Republican Senate President and former US Senate candidate, announced his campaign for governor.
He said in a statement that he is proud to have worked with Sununu “to craft a conservative, pro-jobs, pro-growth, pro-family economic agenda that has made New Hampshire the envy of New England and the nation. We lead the nation in economic freedom. We have the lowest poverty rate in the country and are the number one state for taxpayer return on investment.”
Two Democrats, Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington and Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig, have also announced their candidacies for the position.
Sununu, a popular governor who has made the rounds of national talk shows this year, announced in June that he would not seek the presidency in 2024. He argued that Republican candidates who “have no path to victory must have the courage to come out ” of his increasingly crowded party primaries to prevent former President Donald Trump from being re-elected.
Sununu has said he will endorse the GOP’s eventual nominee in 2024, but argued in an op-ed that the Republican must take a “course correction” away from Trump.
In 2021, Sununu decided against a run for the U.S. Senate, dealing a major blow to Republicans who had hoped to defeat Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan and help them take back the chamber in the midterm elections. 2022.
Sununu, who won re-election in 2020 by more than 30 percentage points, said he could have a bigger and more direct impact as governor than as a senator. In a nod to the slow speed of politics in Washington, he said he didn’t want to spend the next six years “sitting around meeting after meeting, waiting for the votes to happen.”
Sununu, whose father was governor from 1983 to 1989 and later served as White House chief of staff under President George HW Bush, was the nation’s youngest chief executive when he took office in 2017 at the age of 42.
