Breaking step with Stepanek?

Considering the less-than-remarkable results for the NHGOP in the legislative and congressional races, let’s just say there’s a growing sense of restlessness with the Trumpies who’ve been running the show for the last few years. Especially because there’s a widely held view that the NHGOP failed to get the borderline GOP votes it used to get in mid-term elections, thanks in no small part to the ongoing rantings and ravings of the loser of the 2020 prez election.

Which means that there’s a growing chance that when the NHGOP meets next to pick its leadership, GOP Chair Steve Stepanek will be facing some organized opposition if he decides to go for another term.

Stepanek: What happened to the ‘guarantee’?

SS — who was a Trump co-chair in 2016 — is in the sights of GOPers who aren’t exactly thrilled with the beatdown the part received, particularly when it came to the U.S. Senate and House races, where the GOP came up with zilch.

And those results came after SS issued a “guarantee” in Jan. ’21 that a “conservative Republican” would be elected to Congress in ’22. Unfortunately for him, things just didn’t work out that way, did they? Also, unfortunately for him, pols have long memories.

“He’s not going to have the financial support he had anymore, he’s not going to have the internal support that he had before. And so therefore, there’s opportunity there. That political weakness is blood in the water for some folks.”

— Guv Sununu, speaking at the Republican Jewish Conference in Vegas, gives his take on how potent another Trump prez run would be.

Changes at the top?

Consider the last legislative sessions from the guv’s perspective.

With the GOP holding majorities in both the House and Senate, you woulda thunk things would go smoothly for his agenda, from getting everyone on the same page on fighting Covid to taking a big bite out of the housing crisis.

But that wasn’t to be, with a rash of rogue Republicans lining up to defeat or at the very least stonewall the guv’s big priorities.

Osborne: Friends in the wrong places?

So it should come as no surprise that on Org. Day — and with the House GOP majority this go-round razor-thin — there just might be an attempt to make a change or two in the GOP leadership, starting with the majority leader, Jason Osborne, the Auburn GOPer who also happens to be a Free Stater, whose numbers just so happen to make up the verymuch-anti-Sununu wing of the GOP caucus and the NHGOP itself.

Word is that some folks were trying to put together a coalition of moderate GOPers and Dems to deep-six JO’s attempt for another go at the majority leader’s job. Whether it’s just a plan on paper or actually takes place is another matter entirely.

“Tom Brady won a Super Bowl when he was like 43. I think we have to reassess our views of aging and all that.”

— Larry Drake, chair of the Rockingham County Dems, gives The Wall Street Journal his feelings about Joe Biden running for reelection in 2024, when he’ll be 82.

First to be first

In an attempt to fill the vacuum left by the departure of ex-SOS Billy Gardner, the guv appears to be making himself the new self-anointed protector of the NH prez primary. Which is all well and good.

Why, just th’other day, the guv proclaimed that, no matter what the DNC or anyone else decides, NH will go first. Period. As we all know, it’s state law. And he made sure the Inside-the-Beltway crowd hears him loud and clear by drawing the line in the sand in an interview with the WashPost.

In that interview, he basically tried to shoot Nevada in the knees with this perspective by mocking the state’s slow ballot-counting process post-’22 election. “Can we all have a good laugh at that? They’re still counting fricking votes.”

And he also tried to slam-dunk on the DNC by warning that if they take the No. 1 primary slot away from NH, Dems will pay at the polls: “I think Democrats are doing themselves a horrible disservice by even trying to, you know, insinuate that we don’t do it right.”

While you could argue both of the guv’s points, there is a legit question to ask about the primary’s impact in ’24 if the guv himself decides to run for prez — something he is very publicly mulling, or at least pretending to mull.

If he’s on the ballot in ’24, how many GOP prez candidates (and there may be a football team’s worth) stay away from NH figuring it won’t be worth even trying?

MAKING THE ROUNDS

So what’s the over/under on how many times the Wheeler Wing of the Exec Council votes to turn down funding for sex ed, vaccines, reproductive services and other healthcare-related requests in the next 2 years?

Whether they wanted to or not, the NHDP kinda looked like one of those renegade Arizona counties when it went to court over the Ward 6 House seat recount in Manch. Since they pulled out at the end, reality must have set in, huh?

NHGOPer Lou Gargiulo’s stunt in the District 24 NH Senate recount — a race he lost by over 3,600 votes, or 11.4% — when his peeps challenged every absentee ballot shown to them earns him a lifetime supply of My Pillows.