By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
MEREDITH – Gov. Chris Sununu made his election predictions Wednesday of a status quo in Concord after Nov. 5.
He said he believes that the New Hampshire Senate will retain its 14-10 Republican majority after the election, the House of Representatives will continue to be about evenly split between Democrats and Republicans and the Executive Council will continue a 4-1 Republican majority with a few new faces in all chambers and former U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte will pull out a win for governor over Democrat Joyce Craig.
The outgoing Republican admitted the governor’s race is pretty tight, adding an open race is always going to be close.
He added he was not ready to agree with pollsters that former President Donald Trump will lose the Granite State and that Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris wins it, though he noted the Harris camp is pumping big money into the state.
Sununu said he liked the chances of the former and first female Attorney General over the former Manchester mayor.
“She’s doing a great job just being herself and talking about all the different issues that the state is handling and that is why she is winning,” he said of Ayotte.
At the top of the ticket, “New Hampshire will be close. But in the swing states that everyone is talking about, I think (Trump) wins the vast majority of them. Maybe not by much, but he doesn’t need to win them by much. And that’s the way it goes,” the governor said while speaking with reporters following the Executive Council meeting at Church Landing in Meredith. It was a location he chose for the last of a series of six council meetings on the road this summer.
Sununu said he has been too busy to seriously look for work after he leaves office in January, but that he will be looking for something – perhaps several things in business and media – because he still pays a mortgage in Newfields.
And he said he supports the Department of Safety’s decision to create multilingual New Hampshire driver’s manuals, which came up to a vote at the council table and passed, 4-1.
Sununu said he loves the Second Congressional District Republican candidate Lily Tang Williams and her life story of coming from communism in China to patriotism in the United States but said it is too bad she has not received more funding from national Republicans. She is running against Democrat Maggie Goodlander.
“Living in poverty in communist China, completely brainwashed. Came to America with a hundred bucks in her pocket…Now, she is a congressional candidate. Only in America!” he said.
Sununu suggested people get to know her story in the next month, when “people will be paying attention,” to that race and said this is not unlike the election in 2016 and that Trump has polled in a net positive way in the district, “so it’s not a lost district. It’s not one that can’t be won.”
He did not opine on the First Congressional District race between incumbent Democrat Chris Pappas and Republican Russell Prescott.
OFFERING DIFFERENT LANGUAGES FOR DRIVER TRAINING
On a vote of 4-1 with Executive Councilor David Wheeler the lone opposition, the council approved a tabled item to create multilingual NH Driver’s Manuals in five different languages.
English is the state’s official language, Wheeler said, expressing concern for the creation of multi-lingual NH driver’s manuals.
But there are exceptions to that language rule when it comes to safety, Commissioner of Safety Robert Quinn said.
He said that this is federal money to be used and no state funds are involved.
The governor said he supported the request during the press availability.
“If it’s a net safety benefit then they are doing their job,” he said of the Department of Safety.
JOB SEARCH
Sununu said he has been so busy that he has not been able to dedicate time to find a new job.
He said he still has 90 days to go and “I wish I knew” but he said he cannot sign up with an organization when he has work to do running the state.
Sununu said he is looking at business, private equity, boards and media and really getting back to the business side of life.
He said national groups have reached out and while he has no plan to run for anything immediately, he’d like to keep his political voice into the mix.
He appears regularly on national media to discuss politics.
“Keeping my hand in the political pot through having a public voice is something I am very interested in. It doesn’t pay a whole lot,” he said.
