Popular Republican reveals what’s next after governing a key state for 8 years

CONCORD, NH – After eight years leading the swing state of New Hampshire, Republican Chris Sununu left office a few days ago with some of the highest approval ratings among The 50 Governors of the United States.

Sununu, who won election and re-election four times (New Hampshire and neighboring Vermont are the only states in the nation where governors serve two-year terms), he credited his team.

“If you want to be good as an executive, you have to surround yourself with great people,” Sununu said in an exclusive digital interview with Fox News on his last full day in the role Wednesday.

When asked about his tenure in office, Sununu said, “Like anything in life, you just want to make sure you leave it better than you found it. And I couldn’t be prouder of where we’ve arrived in the last eight years.”

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“The key is always to find a way to make it work for the citizens. That’s it. That’s the job. You have to be results-oriented, regardless of the hand they give you, the policy they give you, the “environment. atmosphere,” Sununu said.

“So I think in New Hampshire, we’ve done really well,” he said.

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His successor as governor, fellow Republican and former senator Kelly Ayotte, agreed.

Ayotte, who campaigned to continue the Sununu agenda, praised his predecessor.

“New Hampshire is moving in the right direction, and no one deserves more credit for that after four terms at the helm than Gov. Chris Sununu. Thank you, Governor,” Ayotte said.

Longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckely, a vocal critic of Sununu, disagreed when he pointed to “years of failed Republican policies” under the retiring governor.

Sununu, who announced last year that he would not seek an unprecedented fifth two-year term as governor, reiterated what he has said for months, that he is “very eager to get back into the private sector, maybe private equity or board of directors.”

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Sununu, 50, who was the nation’s youngest governor when he was first elected in 2016, has also for months repeatedly ruled out a 2026 Senate run in New Hampshire.

“Right now I’m not planning to run for anything. I’m not really, at least for the next two, four, six years,” he stressed.

But Sununu, who in 2023 seriously considered a 2024 Republican presidential nomination before deciding against it, hasn’t completely closed the door on another run in the future.

“Who knows what happens down the road, but it would be way down and nothing, nothing that I’m planning, nothing that my family would tolerate in the short term,” he said.

Sununu, who has been a regular on cable news networks and Sunday talk shows in recent years, is considering a formal media role.

“I’m definitely talking to a few different networks that have come and asked me to do certain things, and I’m going to continue to do things and help them. There’s a long-term plan to fix a little bit more with a network. or a show or something? I’m definitely interested,” he shared.

Sununu, who comes from a prominent political family (his father John H. Sununu served three terms as governor and later as chief of staff to President George HW Bush, and older brother John E. Sununu was a and senator), noted, “I definitely want to keep scratching that political itch in some way, not necessarily running for office, but staying involved, having a voice, helping the party.”

But whether the party, once again firmly under the control of President-elect Trump, wants Sununu’s help is questionable.

Sununu, a very vocal critic of Trump following the then-president’s unsuccessful efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Biden, ended up endorsing Trump’s rival, Nikki Haley, in the race for the presidential nomination in 2024 GOP Sununu became a primary replacement for Haley, a two-term former South Carolina governor who served as U.N. ambassador in the first Trump administration.

But after Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination, Sununu said he would vote for him.

“Donald Trump is the head of the party, and he’s the voice of the Republican Party, and I have to say, I think he’s doing a really good job in the first few months,” Sununu told Fox News. “The people that they’ve been appointing to these positions. They’re moving fast. They’re not slowing down. The efforts with DOGE (Trump’s intended department of government efficiency), I think, have been phenomenal.”

And he praised the politician he had been criticizing for some time.

“Give the president credit. He earned it. He won the primary. He got the votes,” Sununu said. “He laid the groundwork for success, not just in the primaries, but he really galvanized a new working class of voters for the Republican Party as the general election rolled around. So he did a phenomenal job there.”

But he said the GOP is bigger than any politician, even Trump.

“It’s not just a Donald Trump Republican or a Chris Sununu Republican. The Republican Party is big. Man. It’s very, very, large, whether you have fiscal conservatives like me, social moderates, whatever, even some of the The more extremist side of things, everyone has a place and voice.”

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And Sununu is very optimistic about the future of the GOP.

“It’s a very big party, and it’s growing. I mean, it’s really growing, and November 5th was a great example of that. So I’m very optimistic about where the Republican Party is going with Donald Trump, with other leaders. . JD Vance, coming to the table, putting their two cents in and making sure it’s about America.”