Will Kelly Ayotte Match Chris Sununu’s Rare Feat?
Sununu is the only New Hampshire Republican since the Gilded Age to win the governorship whilst his party simultaneously lost all federal races up and down the ballot
Kelly Ayotte’s decisive GOP gubernatorial primary victory against former State Senate President Chuck Morse last week brings her one step closer to achieving a few unusual feats in New Hampshire this November.
Ayotte is looking to become just the 22nd sitting or former U.S. Senator to subsequently win a gubernatorial election since 1900 and the first in New Hampshire. [Ayotte is also only the second to make such an attempt in the state during the direct primary era].
For Ayotte to succeed, she may need to achieve something only outgoing Governor Chris Sununu has accomplished in more than 130 years.
Since the early 1890s, Sununu is the only New Hampshire Republican to be elected governor while his party’s entire federal ticket was defeated.
And he’s done it for each of his four terms in office.
During the 66 cycles from 1892 through 2022, Republicans won the governorship 50 times in New Hampshire with the GOP carrying all federal offices on the ballot in 34 of these.
Sununu first won the governorship in 2016 with a plurality whilst Democrats recorded plurality wins in races for president (Hillary Clinton), U.S. Senator (Maggie Hassan, unseating Ayotte), and both U.S. House seats (Carol Shea-Porter and Ann Kuster).
Sununu and Kuster were reelected with majority support in 2018 as was Democrat Christopher Pappas in the open 1st CD.
In 2020, Sununu ran nearly 20 points ahead of Donald Trump at the top of the ticket while Joe Biden, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Kuster, and Pappas all were elected with majorities for the Democrats.
In 2022, Sununu had a very comfortable reelection victory (15.5 points), despite fairly large wins by Hassan (9.1 points), Kuster (11.7 points), and Pappas (8.1 points).
During the remaining 46 cycles in which Republicans won the governorship in New Hampshire since 1892, at least two other GOP nominees for federal office were victorious in 44 of them.
Only Styles Bridges in 1934 and John Sununu in 1982 won elections for governor with their party winning just one federal seat. [In each of those midterm victories, there was no U.S. Senate election held in the state; the two major parties each won a single U.S. House district].
Prior to Chris Sununu, the last New Hampshire Republican to win the governorship in the face of a Democratic federal office sweep was Hiram Tuttle who eked out a 93-vote victory in 1890 while his party was unseated in both congressional districts.
On the Democratic side, only Jeanne Shaheen (1998, 2000) and John Lynch (2010) have been elected governor whilst Republicans swept all the federal races on the ballot during this period under analysis.
In November, Ayotte will face former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig in what is generally considered a coin-flip race and the most competitive among the 11 states holding elections for the office this cycle.
The state will not host a U.S. Senate election in November, but Vice President Harris, Pappas, and newcomer Maggie Goodlander (2nd CD nominee) are each somewhat favored to win.
Whether Ayotte can strike just enough of an independent tone in the coming weeks that helped propel Sununu and other recent Northeastern Republicans in blue states to victory (Phil Scott of Vermont, Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Larry Hogan of Maryland) remains to be seen.
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(Election ’24 Odds & Ends)
– “…a coin-flip race and the most competitive…” In an earlier, bygone era, nearly all states up this cycle (’23 & ’24) have had genuinely competitive contests, particularly when no elected incumbent was a general election contender.
– When the cycle began, the KY and NC contests were considered the most competitive. While the KY race did turn out to be close (Beshear the younger garnered a lower share of the vote and far fewer counties than the elder “Steve” Beshear had in 2011) the NC election seems recently to be breaking towards the two-term D attorney general (Mark Robinson: out-of-contemporary-mainstream platform and persona? lieutenant governor ‘curse’?), perhaps becoming the only D bright spot for the state (e.g. “45” could well carry the state, longtime Secretary of State Elaine Marshall may at last be defeated).
– Since 2009, incumbent or ex US senators lost gubernatorial bids in NV, GA, AK, LA, and TX while won in KS. My surmise is that the current (and departing) senator in IN is far more likely to win his bid than Ayotte will hers – though her slogan, “Don’t ‘Mass’ with New Hamshire” is rather memorable (with a tinge of anti-migrant, anti-diversity tone meant to appeal to the MAGA disciples in the state).
– Ex-MD Governor Hogan is almost certain to win in (proportionately) more counties for his Senate bid this cycle than his onetime colleague, Democrat “Steve” Bullock in his 2020 MT election, though he too will more likely than not come up short (a non-elected incumbent US senator standing in a presidential year in a state that lopsidedly prefers one party).
(Unrelated) Lieutenant Governor Mark Keith Robinson of NC has apparently definitively rebuffed calls by his fellow Republicans to withdraw from the gubernatorial election in the wake of highly problematic comments made on a hardcore pornographic website (albeit decades ago). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Tar State GUV election seems to be losing its competitive tone within just the past several days (any spillover effect on other Council of State elections? Maybe reverse coattail beneficial to VP KH?).
If, as some cautiously or giddily predict, the Democratic nominee wins, then it will mark the third time since 1999 that a lieutenant governor has lost the GUV election to a current or former attorney general (2024 general?; 2020 general; 2000 D primary). As well, a D win this year would result in the *third consecutive sitting attorney general* – of the same party, no less – to have been elected to the post of governor.
Barring a sizable hidden vote for Robinson, it seems more likely than not that Attorney General “Josh” Stein will win the gubernatorial election by at least 15%. However, even such a lopsided victory may not result in a statewide sweep (even excluding judicial elections) for the Old North State Democrats. In 2004, the D incumbent won re-election by 56.4% to 43.2% (most recent double-digit victory) yet the Republicans ended up winning the elections for commissioner of agriculture, auditor, the US Senate Class 3 seat, and the presidential balloting.
(Unrelated) Daniel J. Evans (R-Wash.) died last week, the oldest living former senator at the time of his death – he was governor for three terms from 1965 to 1977 and U.S. senator for a partial term from 1983 to 1989. Was he the longest-serving governor to win a Senate seat?
One current senator is close: John Hoeven (R-N.D.) was governor for 10 years from 2000 to 2010, when he resigned upon his election to the Senate.
Tommy Thompson (R-Wis.) served longer as governor: 14 years from 1987 to 2001. However, after serving as secretary of HHS and running briefly for president, he came up short in his 2012 Senate bid.
I found a few examples of governors who served for 12 years and were subsequently unsuccessful candidates for the Senate:
*Arthur B. Langlie (R-Wash.): gov. 1941-45, 1949-57; sen. nominee, 1956
*G. Mennen Williams (D-Mich.): gov. 1949-61; sen. nominee, 1966
*Robert E. Smylie (R-Idaho): gov. 1955-67; sen. candidate, 1972
*Richard Lamm (D-Colo.): gov. 1975-87; sen. candidate, 1992
One might argue that Evans got an assist from Gov. John Spellman (R-Wash.), who appointed him to the Senate after the death of Scoop Jackson (D-Wash.); he then won a special election in November 1983 [defeating future governor Mike Lowry (D-Wash.)] to retain the seat. Might we one day see a three-term governor [excepting the two-year term states, Vermont and New Hampshire – Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) was technically a three-term governor] enter the Senate by election?
– “…and were *subsequently unsuccessful*…) Langlie (R-WA) was *still incumbent governor* at the time of the 1956 US senate election. Also, Howard Dean (D-VT) sought the presidency in 2003-04 after serving nearly 11 & 1/2 years as governor.
– “Bill” Janklow (R-SD) served a state-record 16 years as governor. During his final full year (2002) he successfully sought a US House seat, whereas other 12+-year governors sought other (not always ‘higher’) office sometime prior to completing their lengthy tenures, e.g. “Jim” Rhodes (R-OH) in 1970 and “Jim” Hunt (D-NC) in 1984, both for a US senate seat.
– Would John Hoeven ever make an attempt to return to the governorship, either as sitting senator or former senator, presuming he is constitutionally permitted to?
– Ex-Senator Ayotte succeeded in her (indirect) jump from the US Senate to a state constitutional post, even as the entire Republican federal ticket was losing; in 2016, Ayotte herself was one of the casualties that cycle, and would likely have been again even if she had bid for the ‘Manchester & Seacoast’ US House seat (the more marginally R-leaning of the two). By contrast, “Scary Kari” – a continent away – arguably should have sought a House seat, namely the strongly Republican-leaning ‘Glendale & West Valley’ seat (with another high-visibility statewide loss, she may indeed have become a non-viable statewide aspirant, just as Mitt, Hillary, and VP Kamala are or will be at the presidential level).
– Another former governor has failed to ‘pull a Susan Collins’ – Larry Hogan who, unlike several Democratic US Senate nominees, failed to successfully ‘swim upstream’ in his own bid in deep-lavender MD. Not unlike Harris in the battleground venues (she apparently succeeded in retaining the NE-02, which has favorable levels of education attainment, among other factors) Hogan evidently was unable to strike a sufficiently independent tone to become a ‘third way’ voice at the federal level.