Chris Sununu renews attacks on Ron DeSantis

Image via AP.

If Gov. Ron DeSantis opts to run for President in 2024, he may face an antagonist in an early state with a home field advantage.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu continues to offer unsolicited critiques of the man supporters call “America’s Governor,” in the latest sign DeSantis would face real resistance if he pursued the Republican nomination next year, as many expect.

In an interview with Fox News that ran Thursday, Sununu agreed with DeSantis there is a “need to push back on woke policy,” an ongoing concern of DeSantis, but that such pushback shouldn’t happen at the expense of private businesses.

He said that “going after private business is a whole different story. … I come from the ‘Live Free or Die’ state, and private businesses can and should act like private businesses without the fear of being punished by people that might disagree with them.”

“While I agree with a lot of those issues that Ron brings to the table,” Sununu does not think it wise “to necessarily punish private businesses because they don’t agree with a policy or whatever it might be. Those types of culture wars pushing their way into the private sector, that’s definitely not, I think, where we want to be as Americans,” Sununu said.

DeSantis famously made an example of the Walt Disney Corporation last year after its opposition to the state’s Parental Rights in Education bill, with a Special Session memorializing legislative intent to dismantle the Reedy Creek Improvement District that allows Disney governmental autonomy.

Sununu slammed DeSantis before Christmas for another policy decision, meanwhile, chiding DeSantis for his desire to create a state equivalent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“He’s creating his own group to basically be a critique, as I understand it, of the federal group,” Sununu told Hugh Hewitt.

“I don’t need a committee or an organization to tell me and the American people the obvious. But I don’t know, maybe there’s some other function that they’re achieving down in Florida. But I’m just telling you, in terms of critiquing that group, I think I’ve got it. I think the American people got it. It’s been a disaster.”

Previously, Sununu slammed Florida for raising taxes as his state cut them.

“And again, we just doubled down on that with the cutting of the taxes,” Sununu said in May on The Howie Carr Show. as previously reported by POLITICO Florida Playbook. “And Florida is great, Florida’s been very flexible. He did sign another billion dollars of tax increases. I love Ron, but the fact of the matter is their taxes are going up and ours are going down. So I think we’re going in the right direction.”

Despite the stream of critiques from the Granite State Governor, he at least realizes DeSantis could defeat Trump.

“There’s an argument to be made that someone like DeSantis could beat him in a Primary today,” Sununu said to CNN.

Indeed, a recent Club for Growth poll showed in a head-to-head battle between DeSantis and Trump, DeSantis had a 15-point lead. But what’s clear is that any Primary field will be crowded, potentially including favorite son candidates like Sununu.