'The Trump brand doesn't work': GOP governor blames Donald Trump for Republican losses
Show Caption Hide Caption Donald Trump pleads not guilty to charges in Georgia election case Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis relied on Georgia's RICO law to charge former President Donald Trump. He pleaded not guilty to all charges. Scott L. Hall, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu pinned the GOP's underperformance in recent elections on former President Donald Trump, saying “the Trump brand just doesn’t work.”
“It’s about the former president more than anything,” Sununu said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I’ve had school board members, Republican school board members, that have lost their seat because they felt like they had to constantly answer for being a Trump Republican,” Sununu said.
Trump’s negative influence on elections, Sununu argued, bleeds into local elections at all levels.
“It isn’t just the federal seats. It’s the governorships, the school boards, the congressional seats, all of them, especially in a place like New Hampshire where we can kind of get back and forth. We’re very independent minded. The Trump brand doesn’t work,” Sununu said. “It just doesn’t.”
New Hampshire was one of several states in the 2022 midterm elections that saw Democrats sweep competitive congressional races. That was in part due to Trump-aligned candidates failing to win support from the state's traditionally independent voters. Sununu is one of Trump’s most vocal critics and has urged his party to move on from him as the GOP’s de facto leader.
The New Hampshire governor, who passed on a 2024 presidential bid earlier this year, called on the candidates in the Republican primary race to be “a little tougher on Trump,” also praising presidential candidate and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for his willingness to go after the former president.
“I think they have to be a little tougher on Trump,” Sununu said during the interview. “Chris Christie kind of really goes nuclear on him and God bless Chris. He does a great job with that. He exposes a lot of that which I think is important.”
Sununu took aim at entrepreneur and rising candidate in the primary, Vivek Ramaswamy, for calling Trump “one of the greatest presidents.” The New Hampshire governor said there was too much “kowtowing” to Trump in the first Republican presidential primary debate.
“I think what we saw on the debate stage last week, I think there was still a little too much kowtowing to him. You had Vivek saying he was one of the greatest presidents, but he was going to be better than him,” Sununu said.
LindaBelchersLaugh on September 3rd, 2023 at 17:17 UTC »
The problem is that Trump is a cult leader who has successfully co-opted a great portion of the GOP who will follow him and only him until the end.
If the GOP would like to try to rebrand, they are going to have an uphill battle. They're going to have to splinter their party.
Into what? Because Trump or no Trump, the GOP is the party of no empathy. The GOP has an abuse mindset.
They have the mindset that poverty is deserved and should be punished.
Chronic illness is deserved and must be punished.
Having a child is something that must be punished and no parent deserves any kind of assistance or aid. Especially single parents.
Being a senior citizen is something that should be punished. If you didn't make your millions when you were young, too bad, you must work until you are dead and you don't get a penny from the government, even though you paid into social security.
Being a child is something that should be punished, not just with inadequate schooling, no lunches or breakfasts, and punitive amounts of God and church brainwashing, but now they want to lower the working age to force children into labor.
Speaking of forcing children into labor, the GOP also expects girls as young as 10 to carry their rapists babies to term. And then, the rapists will have rights to their children, ensuring that these young girls must have relationships with their abusers for the rest of their lives.
Of course, when you look at who is doing the sexual assaulting, it's Republicans and Christian priests all the way down. So of course this works great for them. They get to abuse 10-year-olds, impregnate them, and then either marry them, or have access to them forever. And then have access to the babies, that they can also abuse. What a setup.
Anybody voting Republican in this day and age is complicit in all of these horrors.
Long_Before_Sunrise on September 3rd, 2023 at 16:05 UTC »
You bought it, it's broken. Tough shit.
Unlucky_Clover on September 3rd, 2023 at 16:03 UTC »
It’s not just Trump, it’s anti everything: abortion, health care, social security, green energy, etc. Anything that could make your life better, the majority Republican Party doesn’t want that to happen.