Adam Czarkowski lives in Penacook.

On Sunday, June 4, my mom gave me an early Father’s Day present: it was a ‘Chris Sununu for president’ shirt. On Monday, June 5, Governor Chris Sununu announced he would not be running for president of the United States.

I can’t help but feel my hubris was somewhat responsible. I was hoping Chris Sununu would run so Republicans that are actually fiscally conservative, and support small government would have someone to vote for. Instead, we are left with two bad choices.

This may disturb some folks, but Donald Trump will never be president of the United States again. He has alienated too many voters. The list of his transgressions is way too long for this column. The most serious offense was the horrible precedent he set in 2020 after losing the election. He failed to concede the election as he should have and made up a fairy tale about voter fraud to soften the blow to his ego. He attacks anyone that criticizes him. As I write this column, he has been indicted for the second time. While he has a vocal fan base there is no way he could get enough support from moderate voters to win 270 Electoral College votes.

The other option is Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis. Instead of focusing on wasteful government spending and lowering taxes, he is launching a war on the “woke.” Governor DeSantis has passed awful laws targeting the LGBT+ community and signed an extreme abortion ban which thankfully is being held up in the court system.

If the GOP has any hope of winning back the presidency they must appeal to independent voters. According to a Gallup poll in January 2023, 41% of Americans identify as politically independent. That is the highest percentage since Gallup started tracking party affiliation in 1988.

Governor Sununu was the perfect candidate to appeal to independent voters. He won reelection by huge margins while Democrats won all the federal level posts in New Hampshire. So, voters that voted for Democrats for U.S. House and Senate voted for Sununu for governor. Governor Chris Sununu would have allowed rational Republicans and independents to support a candidate that would be respectful of taxpayer’s money and would not push an extreme agenda.

Governor Chris Sununu has been the best governor this state has seen since his father John H. Sununu and would have made an amazing presidential candidate. But alas, we may have to wait until 2028 to see that happen.

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