Gov. Chris Sununu is giving the Republican rivals to Donald Trump in the race for the 2024 GOP nomination a failing grade when it comes to the former president’s legal controversies.

Trump’s federal indictment was the biggest story to rock the presidential campaign trail over the past week. The former president was indicted a week ago on criminal charges that he illegally retained national security records at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, following the end of his term in office, and that he obstructed federal efforts to recover the documents.

Trump, the commanding front-runner in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to 37 felony charges as he was arraigned in federal court in Miami.

Many of the roughly dozen rivals running for the GOP nomination were quick to defend Trump and slam what they argued was the politicization of the U.S. Justice Department. And a handful pledged that if Trump was convicted and they were elected, they would pardon the former president. Only two candidates – former Govs. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas and Chris Christie of New Jersey, who’ve long been Trump critics – blasted the former president over the indictment.

Sununu, another Republican critic of Trump who’s repeatedly argued the former president is too tainted to win back the White House in 2024, sensed a missed opportunity.

“I think there is a complete, inconsistent message from them as a group,” Sununu told reporters following Wednesday’s Executive Council session. “Even individually, they seem to be wavering in their messages.”

And the governor, who seriously mulled a White House run of his own before announcing early last week that he wouldn’t seek the 2024 GOP nomination, added that “I feel like there is a lot of political consultants whispering in both their ears at once and depending on what time of the day, you get kind of a different message.”

“I think there is a huge opportunity to have a clear and consistent Republican message. That’s not happening right now and that allows Trump to stay well ahead in the polls and keep rallying more Republican support behind him,” Sununu argued.

And he said that the candidates were failing to get the “average voter to really appreciate that Donald Trump is for Donald Trump and really doesn’t represent the pillars of the Republican party moving forward.”

The governor reiterated that when it comes to Trump, “it’s all about him…It’s about his indictments. It is about him being the victim of political attacks.”

Sununu’s concerns appeared to be reflected in a new poll conducted for the conservative-leaning NH Journal, which questioned likely GOP presidential primary voters in New Hampshire on Wednesday and Thursday, entirely after Tuesday’s arraignment.

Nearly half of those questioned in the poll (47%) said they’d support Trump if the presidential primary were held today, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a distant second place at 13%. Christie stood at 9% in the survey, with former Vice President Mike Pence at 5% and everyone else in the burgeoning field of contenders at 3% or less. Less than a quarter of those surveyed said Trump is guilty and deserves to be punished, while 35% answered that the former president had done nothing wrong.

“The remaining 42 percent, a plurality, said they weren’t sure if he broke the law, but they believe he is only being prosecuted because he is Donald Trump,” NH Journal managing editor Michael Graham wrote.

Now that he’s no longer considering a White House run, Sununu said he’s “quite passionate about trying to keep all these other presidential candidates on the Republican side focused on what I believe is the right message.”

Looking ahead to next year’s elections, Sununu has yet to announce whether he’ll seek an unprecedented fifth term as New Hampshire governor.

Asked about his timetable, the governor told the Monitor a week ago that he’d have a decision “this summer. Maybe after the Fourth or something.” And pointing to his wife, Valerie, and three children, Sununu added, “I’ve got to talk to Val and the kids. I’ll figure it out. I really don’t know.”

On Wednesday, Sununu repeated that he’d decide in the next few weeks. But looking into the future, he added that “at some point, you’ve got to move on.”

On Friday, in an appearance on Boston’s WEEI radio, the governor sounded like he wasn’t up for running for re-election in 2024, saying “I'm leaning not to doing it, but I'll talk to the family about it and see what we do.”

“No one has ever been a five-term governor in New Hampshire. I'm not here to break records,” Sununu emphasized.

But then, not closing the door to running for re-election, he added “but I could."

2024 Traffic

Newly declared Republican presidential candidate and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum campaigned in New Hampshire last weekend, and another GOP 2024 contender – former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, campaigned in the Granite State at the beginning of the week.

Former U.S. Rep. Will Hurd of Texas was also in New Hampshire earlier this week – his fourth visit so far this year. The former CIA spy who was the only Black Republican in the U.S. House during his six years in Congress is likely to launch a presidential campaign as early as next week.

In the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, environmental activist and well-known vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. returns to the Granite State next week.

Kennedy, a scion of famous political dynasty, is scheduled to give what his campaign terms “a definitive foreign policy speech” on Tuesday evening at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, with a “peace through diplomacy” theme.

In his bid for the Democratic nomination, Kennedy’s been an outspoken critic of U.S. involvement in support of Ukraine in its war with Russia.

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