New Hampshire gov. suggests Hutchinson, Burgum should exit GOP primary race

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) on Tuesday suggested it might be time for GOP presidential candidates Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum to bow out of the 2024 race.

“If you’re not on the debate stage, I don’t see the path,” Sununu said in an interview with CBS News’s Robert Costa when asked about those two candidates.

“They’re great. They’re two of my best friends, frankly. And they’ve worked hard. They’ve been great candidates on the ground,” Sununu quickly added. “But if you’re not making the national debate stage, it’s hard to find the path at this point. So, you know, those are, kind of, hard conversations to have.”

Sununu’s comments come ahead of Wednesday night’s third GOP primary debate, which will feature only five candidates: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Neither Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor, nor Burgum, the North Dakota governor, met the requirements set by the Republican National Committee (RNC) to qualify for the debate.

To qualify for the third debate, the RNC required candidates to poll at 4 percent in two national polls, or 4 percent in one national poll and in two polls from two early states. The RNC also required candidates to get 70,000 unique donors, including 200 donors in 20 or more states each.

“It’s winnowed down. I think to five, four or five, candidates that are going to be on that stage who are going to bring some excitement and dynamism to the opportunity of saying, ‘Hey, look, there’s a future here. There’s an alternative here. There’s a path to winning here,’” Sununu said about the debate generally. “And hopefully they capture that moment, and I think they will, I think it’ll be pretty exciting.”

Sununu noted that candidates will have more airtime during this debate, which he said he thinks is a good thing.

“It will show, kind of, the opportunity of who’s the fighter, right? Who’s got the experience and the background, willing to fight and gives folks a sense of confidence that not only are they going to fight on a primary debate stage, but be able to carry this all the way to November,” he said.