How a moderate Democrat is freezing out Republicans in one small but important senatorial race

In New Hampshire, it helps that the expected GOP pick has effectively said ‘thanks, but no thanks’

Election 2022 New Hampshire Senate (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Republican New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu made waves this weekend at the Gridiron Dinner, a glitzy event for the resident cool kids of Washington, DC and one of the hotter tickets in town. Your humble dispatcher was not invited, and nor did he care, busy as he was watching his North Carolina Tar Heels beat Duke.

Still, it raised an eyebrow when Politico’s Playbook reported how Sununu called former president Donald Trump “f***ing crazy”.

The son of George HW Bush’s chief of staff and former governor John H Sununu and the brother of former governor and Senator John E Sununu, the current governor was seen as a shoo-in to win against current Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan if he ran in this year’s election. Despite the fact the Granite State has voted Democratic at every presidential election since Barack Obama in 2008, Sununu is a relatively popular governor. Even when Hillary Clinton won the state in 2016, Hassan beat Republican then-Senator Kelly Ayotte by only 1,017 votes.

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott (a former governor of Florida whose interview with The Independent from last year you should read) lobbied him to run, but he ultimately passed. That’s a testament to how difficult it is to persuade non-Trump Republicans to run at the national level, however good their chances.

Sununu’s “Thanks but no thanks” guarantees Hassan a much easier run to re-election. A former governor herself, she’s considered a moderate, setting her apart from New Englanders like Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. (She’s also an incredibly mild-mannered Senator who often shuns hallway interviews. Your reporter has tried.)

A new poll from Saint Anselm College last week showed she leads her most competitive opponent, retired Brigadier General Don Bolduc, by five points. But the state is also overwhelmingly white – more than 90 per cent – which might explain why Hassan has taken a harsh anti-immigrantion stance. When she was governor in 2015, she called for a complete freeze on refugees coming in from Syria as the humanitarian crisis worsened, and she has taken the same line on Capitol Hill.

Last week, the Biden administration announced it would lift the so-called Title 42 provisions that blocked most asylum seekers from progressing past the US-Mexico border during the Covid-19 pandemic. Hassan tweeted that the move “will likely lead to a migrant surge that the administration does not appear to be ready for” and emphasized she would push the White House to “strengthen border security”. She will, she added “look forward to hearing directly from border agents during my upcoming trip to the border”. When it comes to immigration, one might be justified in thinking: With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans?