The General Election is still a ways away, but politics are in full swing with candidates and supporters building their war chests and reaching out to the public in an effort to spread their message ahead of the vote.

Around 75 Republican supporters and candidates for state and local office gathered Thursday morning at the Inn on Main for a Winni GOP fundraiser. Gov. Chris Sununu said President Joe Biden should have been replaced at the top of the Democratic ticket, but that it’s too late to do so now and the Republicans have the edge in the upcoming election.

“It’s gotta be Biden,” he said in an interview following the fundraiser Thursday morning. “I told them a year ago that Biden wasn’t going to be on the ticket, I think the entire Democrat party is going ‘Shoot, I guess Sununu was right, we should've listened.’”

Following the first presidential debate between Biden and former President Donald Trump, a tidal wave of criticism regarding Biden’s age and aptitude for the job befell the Democratic party. 

Sununu said the party should have considered changing their candidate long ago, but now it’s much too late. They could have chosen someone like Vice President Kamala Harris or Michelle Obama to lead the charge, among any number of others with name recognition and without financial problems but at this point a change is unlikely, he said. 

“They chose their path, the Democrat party tried to skip New Hampshire,” he said. “When you try to ignore allowing your voters to pick their nominee, this is what happens.”

Sununu said the lack of a real primary competition among Democratic candidates didn’t do the party any favors.

“They're panicked, but they’ve made their own bed,” Sununu said. “They have to lay in it and [the GOP will] reap the benefits for a long time.”

Following a rousing rendition of “God Bless America,” New Hampshire Republicans opened the fundraiser program on the morning of Independence Day.

Before he spoke, a recent high school graduate approached Sununu, introducing himself and noting he intends to run for office one day.

Sununu, flanked by his family and a number of supporters, told the young man to get an education and experience in the private sector before jumping into politics.

“Politics is great,” he said. “Get a real job first.”

State Sen. Jeb Bradley, who represents Wolfeboro and 16 other municipalities in District 3 and had held his seat since 2009, acted as the host of the engagement which included breakfast and a gun raffle.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Chuck Morse, who owns and operates Freshwater Farms in Atkinson and served for eight years as Senate president, will compete with former U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte for the governor’s seat. Sununu, who has been in the office since 2017, will conclude his tenure at the end of the year.

“It’s all about honor and respect,” Morse said. “We’re in the most livable state in the nation — it didn’t happen by accident, we elected conservatives.”

Morse, a resident of Salem, said he was proud of his achievements while serving in the state Senate. He noted his approach to budgetary issues had been conservative and proved successful.

“We built the most conservative budget in the state’s history" in 2021,” Morse said.

“ We sent $500 million back to the taxpayers. You know why we did it? Because it’s your money — let’s teach Washington how to do it that way.”

If elected, Morse said he’d continue the path of success forged by Sununu.

“This pro-life, pro-jobs, pro-growth agenda that we all grew under Gov. Sununu, it’s working,” he said. “It took us 12 years but we created the [most free] state in the nation, and that just doesn’t happen by accident.”

Working with Bradley and Sununu to pass the budget in 2021, Morse said fiscal conservatism benefitted the state in the long-run.

“As Senate president, making the business tax cuts, making the interest in dividends tax cut, those all happened when we worked together as Republicans,” he said. “It’s what our country should learn from us, because we’re doing it right.”

Hollie Noveletsky, who will compete for the first congressional district seat currently occupied by Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH), said her family came to the United States following pogroms in Russia and she’s proud to represent New Hampshire.

“As a woman, I couldn’t have hoped to have been born in a better country,” Noveletsky said, adding she’s spent her career working as a psychological and geriatric nurse practitioner. “I’m not a politician, I’m not going to pander to you.”

Among her top political priorities are immigration — she said Americans in need must be prioritized — energy independence, including expanding the use of nuclear energy, fiscal responsibility, and improvements to the national health care system. She said support for law enforcement is also high in her agenda.

“Immigration, we need to stop the illegal immigration, we need to stop incentivizing it and we need to take care of our citizens. Our elderly, our homeless, our mentally ill, our disabled — we need to take care of the people who paid into the system,” she said. “We need to go back to all forms of energy, including nuclear, and lastly we need to be fiscally responsible. We can’t be passing thousand-page omnibus bills without knowing what’s in it.

Noveletsky, who is the second-generation owner of Novel Iron Works in Greenland, said her background outside politics gives her a unique perspective regarding the needs of working Granite Staters.

“I’ve worked in dementia care for most of my career,” she said. “Finally, I’m a veteran. I spent eight years in the Army Reserve Nurse Corps, two years after that in the National Guard.

"I’m going to look you in the eye, tell you what I think, and do what I say.”