HAMPTON, New Hampshire — Gov. Chris Sununu insisted Sunday that Nikki Haley doesn’t need to sweep the Granite State to win the 2024 cycle, as new polls show her down by double digits.
Despite his past predictions that he could score a victory in New Hampshire, Sununu argued that he doesn’t need to start beating former President Donald Trump until Super Tuesday.
“He doesn’t need to win. I mean, nobody goes from single digits in December to you really have to win in January,” the Republican governor of New Hampshire told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“The fact that it can happen at all [is significant]. Trump said he was going to win all 50 states,” Sununu said, before pointing out how he had a month to build in South Carolina.
On Sunday, Haley received a major endorsement from New Hampshire’s Union Leader newspaper.
Two new polls Sunday pegged Haley down by double digits over Trump in the Republican primary for New Hampshire.
A CNN poll found Trump with 50% support followed by Haley at 39% and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at 6%. The poll, conducted from January 16 to 19, features a subsample of 1,210 likely Republican voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
Similarly, Trump was found to have a 55% lead over Haley at 36% and DeSantis at 6% in a poll conducted by Suffolk University, NBC10 in Boston, and the Boston Globe.
Nikki Haley and Chris Sununu have been criss-crossing New Hampshire ahead of Tuesday’s primary. Getty Images
The poll measures 500 likely Republican voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4. percentage points. It was taken from Jan 19-20.
The latest RealClearPolitics polling aggregate shows the same gap with Trump at 50.3%, followed by Haley at 34% and DeSantis at 6.3%, in New Hampshire.
At the start of December, Trump was at 45.6% while Haley was at 18.6%, according to RCP.
Haley also fared poorly in her home state of South Carolina with 21.8% support, far behind Trump’s 52% in the RCP, which featured rare polling in the state.
“[I’m not] even looking at it now,” Sununu said when asked about South Carolina. “It’s literally another month.”
South Carolina is expected to take place on February 24. Between Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary and South Carolina, there are contests in Nevada as well as the Virgin Islands’ primary delegate caucus.
Nevada is hosting a controversial and tumultuous GOP contest that will feature both primary and caucus contests. Haley has chosen to run in the primary, even though the caucus has actual representation.
“Super Tuesday is probably where you really have to start winning states. But as long as the momentum continues to grow in our home state, it’s an amazing opportunity to change that,” Sununu said.
Super Tuesday — March 5 — will involve 16 Republican contests comprising about a third of the available delegates.
Chris Sununu endorsed Nikki Haley in December. AP
Sununu also scoffed at Trump’s claim that he has presidential immunity, whose lawyers argued in an appeals court to overturn his four-count 2020 election allegations.
“You have to allow a president – any president – to have immunity so that the President can act and do what he feels like,” Trump insisted at a rally in Manchester on Saturday afternoon.
“Otherwise, you’re going to have a really impotent president, and we’ve had enough of them.”
Trump has previously argued that the president should have immunity even for actions that “cross the line.”
“He’s very serious, he doesn’t make a single joke,” Sununu said. “Everybody should be concerned about the kind of mentality that’s coming into the White House.”
Donald Trump is the reigning Republican front-runner. AP
Sununu defended his past claims that he would support the eventual Republican nominee even if it were Trump.
“This is how bad Biden is, this is how incompetent he is. The man could barely get off the stage,” said Sununu.
The governor went on to emphasize the importance of defeating Trump in the Republican primary.
“It must happen at the ballot box. Don’t sit on your couch. Don’t wait for it to happen. Don’t wait for some external factor or court case to take over. You have to go out and vote,” he said.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
