Morse all in on Trump, spurned by Gov. Sununu endorsing Ayotte in NH governor's race

When New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu endorsed former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte in the Republican primary for governor this week, her opponent former state Senate President Chuck Morse wasted little time. He immediately attacked both of them for their past lack of support for former President Donald Trump.

In a statement, Morse said Sununu referenced many of Morse’s own achievements and that the two have disagreed on many issues in the past, including Trump.

“I think where Governor Sununu comes on Trump, he certainly threw conservatives under the bus by supporting Nikki Haley,” Morse said to Seacoastonline, referring to Sununu's support for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in New Hampshire's presidential primary. “But that's no different than how (Ayotte) treated Donald Trump in 2016, and (Ayotte) lost the U.S. Senate seat at that point in time, and we've (Republicans) lost it for 12 years.”

In the race to succeed Sununu, who has been governor of New Hampshire since 2017, Morse has been trying to take the mantle of the pro-Trump candidate in the field. While both Morse and Ayotte have now endorsed Trump for president in the 2024 election, Morse has painted himself as the candidate aligned with Trump, consistently being vocal about his support for the former president and attacking Ayotte for her reversal of support for Trump in 2016.

“Morse sees that as his main hope that he can find some leverage in this primary and I think he's been leaning fairly heavily into it all year, going back to the presidential primary,” said Dante Scala, an associate professor of politics at St. Anselm College. “What he's hoping is that, over the next month, this race will emerge as sort of a referendum between a Trump-supporting Republican and a Trump-opposing Republican.”

With Sununu throwing his support behind Ayotte, UNH Survey Center Director Andrew Smith said he thinks Morse “has to” lean more heavily into this strategy.

“He's less known (than Ayotte), so he's got to do something to get himself known. What do you do?” Smith said. “Well, I think in this situation, you go hard into the pro-Trump thing and try to tie Ayotte, not to other Republicans, but tie her to (Democratic candidates Kamala) Harris and (Tim) Walz.”

Morse’s first campaign ad, released in late July, accused Ayotte of being the “third most liberal Republican in the U.S. Senate” and someone who’s “turned her back on our Presidential nominee.”

When asked about her response to Morse’s comments after Sununu’s endorsement and her thoughts on the Trump factor in this race, Ayotte’s campaign didn’t mention Trump.

“By turning on his longtime ally Governor Sununu, Chuck has gone to a new low that disappoints those that have known him for decades,” Ayotte’s campaign spokesman John Corbett said.

Morse and Ayotte have varied past support for Trump

Ayotte has a checkered past with Trump. In 2016, she tried to walk the line between criticizing and supporting the then-presidential nominee, prompting criticism from Trump. She ultimately rescinded her support for him after a released audio showed Trump making sexually aggressive and crude comments towards women, saying that she wanted her daughter to know "where she stood." Some have cited her reversal as the reason she lost her Senate race to U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-NH, that year.

In the 2024 election cycle, Ayotte did not endorse a candidate in the presidential primary but did endorse Trump in March. However, she has not made him a central part of her campaign.

Morse endorsed Trump in December ahead of the New Hampshire primary and said he voted for him in both 2016 in 2020. He said he thinks Trump voters recognize his record supporting Trump, and that uniting the party through support for the former president is a "big factor" in the governor's race. But Morse has not always been seen as the pro-Trump candidate.

“He’s not an especially Trumpy candidate, right? I mean, you look at his background, you look at his career in politics, it's very much New Hampshire Republican establishment,” Scala said. “So this attempt to tie himself to Trump, I don't know how much that's going to resonate with die-hard Trump voters because nothing about Morse really screams Donald Trump Republican.”

In 2022, Morse lost the Republican U.S. Senate nomination to Don Bolduc, a Trump-backed hard-right Republican who was a 2020 election denier. Morse had the backing of Sununu in that election.

That loss may be part of the reason why Morse is energetically supporting Trump this time around. Southern New Hampshire University civic scholar Dean Spiliotes said Trump’s support for a candidate, like his support for Bolduc in the Senate primary, can make a difference in a Republican primary. However, he continued, Morse is up against a lot this election with a formidable opponent in Ayotte.

Is the 'Trump factor' diminishing in New Hampshire?

Past primaries, like the one between Morse and Bolduc, have shown that the so-called Trump factor can be powerful. Primaries generally have lower turnout and therefore cater to the more ideological base. But past elections have also shown that the Trump candidate has often gone on to lose the general election, like Bolduc did in 2022, and Smith thinks people are catching on.

“Since Trump's gotten in, the Trump-endorsed candidates have not done well in New Hampshire in general elections. Like I'm trying to think of one that's won, I really can't. So I think that that's sinking in, not only in New Hampshire, but across the country as well,” said Smith. “The Trump factor I think is diminishing, yeah, and especially in a state like New Hampshire, where it really wasn't that strong to begin with.”

New Hampshire itself, especially the governor’s race, is also different.

“The New Hampshire governorship is kind of unusual in that respect. If you think about it, we don't really have ideologically-driven governors. I mean, certainly they’re partisan, but (not) in the grand scheme of ideological governors,” said Spiliotes. “Like compare Sununu to somebody like Greg Abbott of Texas or Kristi Noem [of South Dakota] or Ron DeSantis [of Florida].”

Spiliotes added he thinks Ayotte is seen as having the potential to also be that “middle of the road governor, slightly right of center,” similar to Sununu.

If Trump were to weigh in on the New Hampshire Republican primary and endorse Morse, Spiliotes and Scala said, that might have an effect. It could give Morse a kind of “megaphone” that he doesn’t currently have. But they think an endorsement is unlikely, as Trump has his own “fish to fry" with the presidential race. And even if he did, it’s unclear if it would be enough.

“Ayotte has gone to some pains to make sure that she doesn't depict herself as a 'Never Trump' type of Republican,” Scala said. “I wouldn't say (she has) embraced Trump, but she's said and done just enough to stay on the right side of Trump, so to speak.”

Plus, Ayotte has much higher name recognition than Morse from her time as a U.S. senator. While there has been limited polling, it’s all shown her leading. She has more money and resources than Morse, allowing her to have ads up all the time. And now, she has the endorsement of one of New Hampshire’s most popular governors.

“It's not like it's neck and neck and Trump could kind of weigh in that,” Spiliotes said.

Sununu's Ayotte endorsement isn’t the final nail in the coffin for Morse's campaign, Smith said, but it certainly doesn’t help. While he and Scala are skeptical of the power of endorsements, it does help Ayotte even more with name identity.

“Sununu has been a proven vote getter during the Trump years, you know, Sununu has carried the state over and over again,” Scala said. “There’s still a lot of Republicans who would say out there, ‘Who is Chuck Morse?’ you know, but they know who Sununu is.”

Morse, Scala said, “really needs Trump.”

The state primary is Sept. 10.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Chuck Morse all in on Trump after Sununu endorses Ayotte for NH gov