Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during the Turning Point Action Conference in West Palm Beach, Fla. on July 15.MARCO BELLO/Reuters
One of them is courting all the Republican presidential candidates, drawing the unalloyed ire of Donald Trump. The other is plotting to deny the GOP nomination to the former president.
This is a tale of two Republican governors – and it has special significance because the principals in this drama are not a random sample of state leaders. They are the chief executives of Iowa and New Hampshire, the sites of the first two tests of next year’s presidential election.
In Iowa, Kim Reynolds’s warm welcome to Mr. Trump’s competitors, and her apparent preference for Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, regarded as the top competitor to the former president, has prompted Mr. Trump to characterize her as an ingrate, declaring, “I don’t invite her to events!”
Some 2,062 kilometres away in New Hampshire, Chris Sununu is determined to persuade all but one of Mr. Trump’s rivals to drop out of the race after his state’s January primary. The reason: to concentrate the opposition to Mr. Trump and ensure that he does not succeed in repeating his 2016 GOP nomination win.
Iowa and New Hampshire have outsized roles in presidential politics, and their governors have outsized influence in those early-winter contests. When Mr. Sununu’s father, then-Governor John H. Sununu, backed George H.W. Bush in a crowded 1988 New Hampshire primary, the vice-president won the state – and the momentum to capture the nomination. Mr. Bush rewarded the senior Mr. Sununu with the position of White House chief of staff.
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Now the son, himself a four-term governor, is preparing to play just as decisive a role – not to help a specific candidate win the presidency but to ensure that one specific candidate, Mr. Trump, does not return to the White House.
“After New Hampshire,” Mr. Sununu said in an interview in the very office where those killer phone calls will be made, “the race has to get down to one-on-one.”
He, and pretty much everyone else, knows who one of the finalists will be. Mr. Trump has a decisive edge nationally and here in the Granite State. Mr. Sununu, and pretty much no one else, has no idea who the other contender will be.
But the Governor is determined that there will be one – and only one.
“In travelling around, talking to the Republican donor base, activists and people engrossed in our world, what is amazingly consistent is that [the nominee] can’t be Trump,” he said. “None of them wanted Trump. But the other candidates have to get out of the race, quickly.”
Mr. Sununu, 48, considered a presidential run himself. He is immensely popular in his home state and is well-regarded nationally. But he shelved the notion and is now concentrating on keeping the nomination from Mr. Trump, of whom he once said, “I don’t think he’s so crazy that you could put him in a mental institution. But I think if he were in one, he ain’t getting out.”
That was a comment at a press dinner, where jocular comments are expected – and appreciated. But his new effort is no joke, and he is not a lone wolf in the hunt for a new Republican presidential candidate.
He has primed the 13 other candidates, telling them he will implore all but one of them to withdraw after the New Hampshire primary. He has spoken with each candidate’s largest donors, urging them to assist in the effort.
“A lot of these people will want to stay in the race because they think that they have to stay, for those who believed in them,” Mr. Sununu said. “So we have to go to the donors and have them give permission to the candidates to get out early.
“Then we have to go from ‘permission’ to ‘persuasion.’ ”
Mr. Sununu was not always a Trump opponent. But he is now, with vehemence but not, he suggests, out of vengeance. And he wants the GOP presidential field to join in deploring the 45th president.
“In unison they have to argue that he’s not a Republican, and then that message would resonate,” he argued. “Trump is about Trump, and Republicans have to be about the future. But these candidates are almost apologizing for Trump. They have to be strong, and this argument has to come from the other 13 candidates.”
Meanwhile, in Iowa, Ms. Reynolds’s difficult relationship with Mr. Trump has mobilized his opponents. One original Trump 2024 supporter, state Senator Jeff Reichman, reacted to the attack on the Governor by renouncing his endorsement of Mr. Trump and announcing his support for Mr. DeSantis.
A group called the Republican Accountability PAC – it characterizes itself as “Republicans and conservatives who want the party to move on from Donald Trump” – has begun airing a 30-second spot with a narrator stating, “Republicans love Governor Kim Reynolds.”
In that spot, the group sets out her record on school choice and tax matters along with Mr. Trump’s attack on her. It concludes: “Trump should focus on his campaign, not trashing Governor Reynolds.”