Gov. Chris Sununu's retirement turns New Hampshire into a top Democratic pickup opportunity

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu confirmed Wednesday that he would not seek a fifth two-year term as New Hampshire's chief executive next year, a long-expected announcement that nonetheless instantly turns this race into one of the cycle's top battlegrounds.

Sununu, whose first victory in a tight 2016 race ended 12 years of Democratic control, went on to decisively win his next three campaigns. His departure gives Granite State Democrats their best chance in years to take back this post in a light blue state that hasn't backed a Republican for president since 2000.

Multiple Republicans are also looking at running here, and former state Senate President Chuck Morse immediately confirmed he was in. Party leaders, though, may not be excited to have Morse, who served as acting governor for two days in 2017, as their standard-bearer following his 2022 campaign for the U.S. Senate. Morse, who even a supporter characterized as someone who "is not flashy, and does not have charisma," struggled in the primary against retired Army Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, a Big Lie conspiracy theorist who'd called Sununu a "Chinese communist sympathizer" with a family business that "supports terrorism."