Popular Republican reveals what's next after governing key swing state for 8 years

CONCORD, N.H. – After eight years steering swing state New Hampshire, Republican Chris Sununu left office a few days ago with some of the highest approval ratings among America's 50 governors.

Sununu, who won election and re-election four times [New Hampshire and neighboring Vermont are the only states in the nation where governors serve two-year terms], gave credit to his team.

"If you want to be good as an executive, you’ve got to surround yourself with great people," Sununu said in a national digital exclusive interview with Fox News on his last full day in office on Wednesday.

Asked about his tenure in office, Sununu said, "Like anything in life, you want to just make sure you leave it better than you found it. And I couldn't be more proud of where we've come in the last eight years."

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"The key there is always finding a way to make it work for the citizens. That's it. That's the job. You have to be results-driven, regardless of the hand you're dealt, the politics you're given, the surrounding atmosphere," Sununu said.

"So I think in New Hampshire, we've done it pretty darn well," he touted.

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His successor as governor, fellow Republican and former Sen. Kelly Ayotte, agreed.

Ayotte, who campaigned on continuing the Sununu agenda, praised her predecessor.

"New Hampshire is moving in the right direction, and no one deserves more credit for that after four terms at the helm than Governor Chris Sununu. Thank you, Governor," Ayotte said.

Longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Ray Buckely, a vocal Sununu critic, disagreed as he pointed to "years of failed Republican policies" under the retiring governor.

Sununu, who announced last year that he wouldn’t seek an unprecedented fifth two-year term as governor, reiterated what he's said for months, that he's "very much looking forward to getting back in the private sector, maybe private equity or boards."

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The 50-year-old Sununu, who when he was first elected in 2016 was the nation's youngest governor, has also, for months, repeatedly ruled out running for the Senate in New Hampshire in 2026. 

"I'm not planning on running for anything right now. I'm really not, at least for the next two, four, six years," he emphasized.

But Sununu, who in 2023 seriously mulled a Republican presidential nomination run in 2024 before deciding against it, didn't totally close the door to another run for office in the future.

"Who knows what happens down the road, but it would be way down the road and nothing, nothing I'm planning on, nothing my family would tolerate either short term," he said.

Sununu, who has been a regular on the cable news networks and Sunday talk shows in recent years, is considering a formalized media role.

"I'm definitely talking to a few different networks that have come and asked me to do certain things, and I'll continue doing stuff and helping them. Is there a long-term plan there to be a little more fixed with a network or a show or something like that? Definitely talking about it. I'm interested in it," he shared.

Sununu, who hails from a prominent political family (his father John H. Sununu served three terms as governor and later as President George H.W. Bush's chief of staff, and older brother John E. Sununu was a congressman and senator), emphasized, "I'm definitely going to want to keep scratching that political itch in some way, not necessarily running for office, but staying involved, having a voice, helping the party."

But whether the party, once again firmly under President-elect Trump's control, wants Sununu's help is questionable.

Sununu, a very vocal critic of Trump following the then-president's unsuccessful efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Biden, ended up endorsing Trump rival Nikki Haley in the 2024 GOP presidential nomination race. Sununu became a top surrogate for Haley, a former two-term South Carolina governor who served as U.N. ambassador in Trump's first administration.

But after Trump cruised to the Republican presidential nomination, Sununu said he would vote for him.

"Donald Trump is the head of the party, and he's the voice of the Republican Party, and I got to say, I think he's doing a pretty darn good job in the first couple months," Sununu told Fox News. "The folks he's been nominating to these positions. They're moving quickly. They're not slowing down. The efforts with DOGE (Trump's planned government efficiency department), I think, have been phenomenal."

And he praised the politician he had long criticized.

"Give the president credit. He earned it. He won the primaries. He got the votes," Sununu said. "He did the groundwork to be successful, not just in the primary, but really galvanized a whole new working class of voters for the Republican Party as the general election went on. So he did a phenomenal job there."

But he said the GOP is bigger than any one politician, even Trump.

"It's not just a Donald Trump Republican or a Chris Sununu Republican. The Republican Party is big. Man. It is really, really, big, whether you have fiscal conservatives like myself, social moderates, whatever it might be, even some of the more extremist side of things, everyone has a place here and a voice."

And Sununu's very optimistic about the GOP's future.

"It's a really big party, and it's growing. I mean, it really is growing, and Nov. 5 was a huge example of that. So I'm very optimistic on where the Republican Party is going with Donald Trump, with other leaders. JD Vance, everybody, kind of coming to the table, putting their two cents in and making sure that it's all about America."