NH Governor Race 2020

New Hampshire has a 2 year term for its Governor. Thus, every even year is a gubernatorial election. New Hampshire’s current Governor is Chris Sununu, a moderate 45 year old Republican and son of former Governor John Sununu. Sununu won a razor close election in 2016 with 49% of the vote to his Democrat challengers 47%. Recall that in 2016, Hillary Clinton defeated Trump by 47.6% to 47.3%, so this was a strong performance for Sununu. In 2018, a fairly good national year for Democrats, Sununu won by a wider margin of 53% to 46%.

Sununu has indicated that he will be running as an incumbent in 2020 and so far the most high profile Democratic challenger is State Senate Majority leader Dan Feltes. Other potential candidates include Democratic Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig. We think Sununu is the favorite to win re-election and could be quite helpful to Trump. If Sununu were to win by the same margin as in 2018 and Trump were to run two percentage points less than Sununu (as he did in 2016), then Trump would have slightly over 50% of the electorate and would pick up New Hampshire. In short, Sununu may have “tailwinds” that will enable him to pull Trump across the finish line in the 2020 general election.