Already a member? Log In

Ronny on the Run

On television, DeSantis can come across as savvy, reasonably well media-trained, and sometimes aggressive. But in person, Tara immediately sensed a very different potential candidate.
On television, Ron DeSantis can come across as savvy, reasonably well media-trained, and sometimes aggressive. But in person, Tara immediately sensed a very different potential candidate. Photo: Octavio Jones/Getty Images
Tara Palmeri
May 22, 2023

Last week, I made a pre-election year pilgrimage to New Hampshire, where I was able to hit a lobster shack and drive around with Governor Chris Sununu for hours on end. Sununu, who is openly contemplating a run for the presidency (a “61 percent chance,” he told me), was about to reluctantly share his small, first-in-the-nation primary state with another aspirant for higher office, Ron DeSantis, who planned to swing through the next day as part of his early endorsement-gathering battle with Donald Trump

It was a litmus test of sorts for Sununu, who’s had his own problems with state Republican legislators ever since he backed down on a deal to limit the length of time a governor can unilaterally call for a state emergency, which he did during Covid. So for now, it’s mostly Trump and DeSantis fighting for those endorsements in advance of the oncoming primary, which will formally initiate a Republican presidential race that already feels two years in the making. Sure, these endorsements matter less than they once did, especially since state reps “tend to be political neophytes,” as one New Hampshire presidential consultant told me. (“There are 400 of them. They can hardly find the statehouse, and oftentimes that is a good thing.”) But the symbolism still carries some weight. Jason Osborne, the legislature’s majority leader, actually left a pledge on Sununu’s desk last week asking him to endorse DeSantis, and it hasn’t been answered, I’ve been told.