Trump hints he’d back longtime critic’s bid to flip Dem Senate seat in 2026: ‘I hope he runs’

It seems the president Donald Trump He has buried the axe on the side of former New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, who has been a Republican critic for the former and current president for years.

Trump now says his former opponent will have his full support if Sunoni runs for the Senate in 2026 to take the seat currently owned by retired Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen.

Sununu Tell Fox News Numbers In an interview last month, he aimed to make a decision on the 2026 campaign in the “next weeks.”

He stressed: “I have no doubt that I will get the support of the president” if he decides to do Senate bid.

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Trump revealed that the two politicians met recently at the White House when he asked Sunoni on Sunday night when a reporter who flew to Washington, D.C.

“I told him—he came to my office, came to the Oval Office, and then [I] Meet Chris Sununu and I fully support him. I wish he could run,” Trump said. “He has been nice to me over the past year or so, but no, I wish he could run. I think he will win that seat. ”

Sununi supported Trump during the 2016 election when Trump failed to successfully run for reelection in 2020. The then governor had a strong working relationship with the Trump White House, including close ties to then-Vice President Mike Pence.

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However, Sununu delays opposition to Trump’s unconfirmed claims 2020 Presidential Election Being “manipulated” and “stolen”. He also began to say in early 2021 that the Republican Party is bigger than anyone else, which was considered the form of the president’s card swipe.

Sununu has intensified his criticism of the former president in multiple national interviews on the Cable News Network and Sunday’s talk show, repeatedly believing that Trump has too much political baggage to win the White House. In addition, Sunoni begins to consider 2024 White House Run He decided it himself in the end.

However, he eventually got support and became the highest surrogacy for the former South Carolina government. Nikki Haley In the 2024 Republican presidential primary election. Hayley ended up being Trump’s last rival in the nomination contest.

Trump occasionally fired in Sununu, calling him a “spoiled boy” and a “narling guy”.

However, after Trump received a 2024 Republican nomination, Sununi said he would vote for the party’s presidential candidate.

Sunoni tells Fox News about possible Senate campaign

“Donald Trump is the party leader, he is the Republican voice, and I must say, I think he did a great job in the first few months,” Sununu said in a digital interview with Fox News earlier this year.

About potential 2026 Senate election For Republicans’ seats, their goal is to switch from blue to red as they want to expand their current 53-47 majority in the Chamber of Commerce, Sununi told Fox News figures last month that despite the “door open” running, he emphasized “honestly, it’s not very open, to be honest.”

Sununu, who was elected and served as governor for four consecutive years, touted “I have no doubt I can win.”

The former governor’s comments in recent interviews were a shift from last year when he repeatedly stated that he would not run for the Senate in 2026.

Four years ago, Sununu expressed interest in running for the Senate against his predecessor as governor, Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, who was up for re-election in 2022. The popular governor was heavily courted by national Republicans to take on Hassan, but on Nov. 9, 2021, Sununu announced that he would instead run for a fourth term as governor, upsetting many Republicans in the nation’s capital.

In addition, he severely criticized the Senate. “They debate and talk, and they did nothing,” he said.

Sununu left the office in January with a very positive recognition and favorable rating and was regarded by Republicans nationwide as the best candidate to win a seat. But he is not the only Republican to propose a Senate bid in New Hampshire.

Former Senator Scott Brown Massachusetts later barely lost to New Hampshire’s Shaheen in the 2014 election, and they are seriously considering the 2026 game.

Popular former Republican governor weighs potential Senate bids and whether Trump will endorse him

Brown, who served as the U.S. ambassador to New Zealand for four years in Trump’s first administration, has held meetings with Republicans in New Hampshire for several months and has met with Republican officials in the nation’s capital several times.

Sources told Fox News that Brown met with political officials from the Trump administration at the White House earlier this year.

Asked about the president’s comments on Sunoni, Brown told Fox News in a statement: “President Trump is the leader of the party and he has won the right to support those he supports. There is no citizen nomination for Republican nominations with candidates supported by President Trump.”

Four-term Rep. Chris Pappas officially launched his campaign last week in a New Hampshire Democratic Senate nomination contest.

Pappas said he had a clip of his listening journey last month in all ten New Hampshire counties, and Pappas said voters said they felt like “a system manipulation.”

Trump’s influence on Republicans is stronger than ever, but Sununu says the Republicans are still the “Grandden Party”

“What you think of is a huge cut to Medicaid in the Social Security Office that Littleton closed, all of which are exempt from a lot of tax breaks to billionaires like this one Elon Musk,“He pointed out that he pointed to Trump’s top donors and the world’s wealthiest people who led the government’s controversial layoffs on the federal workforce.

“I do get angry because when you talk about public services, you should focus on how to help people and how to make people’s lives better,” Pappas stressed.

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Pappas may not have a Democratic Senate primary in New Hampshire.

Sources close to New Hampshire, Maggie Goodlander, said last month that the first deputy was considering attending the Senate.