New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said there’s “no doubt” it will be harder for Republican nominee Donald Trump to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris than President Joe Biden on Sunday morning.
“There’s no doubt about that because [Harris] is able to establish this resurgence and her team has done a very good job of kind of avoiding the issues, trying to make people believe that she hasn’t been there for four years,” Sununu said in an interview with host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“They’ve done a very good job of that at the same time, kind of capitalizing on Trump’s reaction. They knew that the former president can be a very reactionary person.”
The Republican governor — once known as being a staunch Trump critic, but who has since supported him as the GOP nominee — previously supported former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the primary. In the interview, he said Trump should talk more about the issues to drive voters, responding to comments from Haley encouraging Trump to stick to the facts, not personal attacks.
“Almost any other Republican candidate would be winning this race by 10 points,” Sununu said. “And so the message is very clear. If you stick to the issues, if you stick to what matters, this should be an easy race for Donald Trump. It really should.”
Sununu specifically pointed out the difference in polling between genders for Trump — he said Trump leads male voters by about 10 points while he is down by 10 to 12 points with female voters. He said Trump needs to “remind folks that he’s running against the most liberal and most unpopular vice president in history.”
He added that he should be reaching out to independent voters and suburban women who might have not been enthusiastic for Biden.
“All of these things are lining up for a huge Republican win. He’s got to deliver,” Sununu said. “And we’ve also showed him an exactly that playbook to do so.”
Sununu still had his own critiques of Trump, who recently compared a Presidential Medal of Freedom to veterans winning the medal of honor. The VFW called Trump’s comments “asinine” — which Sununu agreed with, but said that politically that will not change things, as he has said “crazy things like this before.”
“I don’t think they’re the first asinine comments former President Trump has ever made,” Sununu said. “I don’t think there’ll be a game-changer in terms of the election.”
