Politics

Sununu: Hillary More Vulnerable Than You’d Think In New Hampshire

Alex Pappas Political Reporter
Font Size:

Hillary Clinton might think she has the Democratic nomination locked up, but former New Hampshire Republican Gov. John H. Sununu predicts it won’t be easy winning the state’s primary.

“I think there’s a chance that Mrs. Clinton is going to have much more difficulty than she and her friends think,” Sununu said Thursday during a conversation with The Daily Caller.

Sununu was responding to a question about the rising poll numbers of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who is surprisingly polling just 10 points down from Clinton in New Hampshire in a Suffolk University survey.

“I would suspect that if those kinds of numbers continue for Bernie Sanders,” Sununu said, “that the leaders, the political leaders of the Democratic Party, may start getting little hints that Joe Biden or John Kerry are available, someone like that.”

Added Sununu: “So Bernie Sanders will fill the weakness of Mrs. Clinton, but I think it will be somebody else who comes into the race.”

As for the 2016 Republican race, Sununu was careful not to play favorites: “I have too many friends in the race,” he said with a laugh.

The former governor said he probably wouldn’t endorse. “I’m gonna try and dance as long as I can.”

He said there’s no clear frontrunner in New Hampshire right now.

“There really isn’t anyone and there’s a reason,” he said. “First of all, it’s too early for New Hampshire folks to make serious commitments right now. But secondly, with so many in the race I think it’s even gonna take longer than usual to solidify a decision.”

Sununu, the former White House chief of staff, is promoting his new book, “The Quiet Man: The Indispensable Presidency Of George H.W. Bush.”

Asked about Jeb Bush, he said: “Anybody who is going to get this nomination is going to have to earn it, and I think Jeb knows that and understands that there are pluses and minuses associated with the name. And what he’s going to have to do is maximize the pluses and minimize the minuses.”

Sununu said he wrote the book about Bush’s presidency because he “wanted to get all of his accomplishments between two covers, and put it in a way that would be easy for people to read and get an appreciation of what an extraordinary four years that one-term presidency was.”

The title of the book is a reference to Bush’s 1988 Republican convention speech. “I’m a quiet man, but I hear the quiet people others don’t,” Bush said then.

It also refers to how Bush “really never liked to talk about himself and it was one of the problems he had as a political figure,” Sununu said.

“I just felt it was time that someone did a little bit of bragging for him.”

Follow Alex on Twitter